New Delhi: The first day of ‘Lockdown 4.0’ gave prime time anchors a lot to talk about Monday night, especially the responses by various state governments.
However, on some channels, the conversation concentrated on topics like ‘ideological stone pelting’ and uncovering alleged lies by China about the coronavirus outbreak.
Zee News fell was in the former category. Anchor and the channel’s Editor in Chief Sudhir Chaudhury revealed that 39 employees of Zee News had tested positive for coronavirus.
“Unke paas vikalp maujood tha office na aane ka, par apna kartavya nibhaate rahe,” (They had the option to not come to work, but they continued to do their duty) he said, praising his colleagues.
“Coronavirus ki front line par Zee News hai.” (Zee News is on the frontline of the fight against coronavirus), Chaudhary explained.
But then came the bigger point of the segment — “Lekin kuch aise log hai jinhe yeh khabar milte hi jashn manana shuru kar diya,” (There are some people who celebrated this news). Chaudhary blamed the ‘tukde tukde’ gang for their ‘vaicharik patharbaazi’ (ideological stone pelting) at his channel and its reporters.
On News18 India, anchor Amish Devgan’s eyes were trained on Pakistan.
“Suniye Shahid Afridi ki gandi maansikta, iske khandaan ka ek vyakti aatankvadi reh chuke hai,” (Listen to Shahid Afridi’s vile mentality, one of his family members were also declared terrorists).
Devgan alleged that Pakistani cricketer Shahid Afridi had discriminated against a Hindu cricketer Danish Kaneria in his team. Kaneria was only the second Hindu player to be a part of the Pakistani cricket team.
Devgan claimed that he had run out of words in his vocabulary to explain Afridi’s thinking. Devgan continued, “Apne desh mein minorities ke upar atyachar pe lagataar chup hai,” (He doesn’t talk about the oppression minorities face in his own country).
Aaj Tak’s Sweta Singh was displeased with China — “China inn sab ke beech bahut saari jaankariyan chupaye rehta hai, toh doore jhoot ko bol kar purane jhoot ko cover karne ke liye sach batane ke liye bolte rehta hai,” (China is hiding news, they are trying to hide one truth with one lie afte another to cover another lie in order to prevent saying the truth). We’re very confused, Ms Singh.
She continued, “Ab tak yahan tak baat aa chuki hai ki China ne jo kul sankramiton ka aankada diya tha…toh ab samjh kijiye ki wahan ka aankada laakhon mein ho sakta hai,” (The number of coronavirus cases that China had revealed.. Now you must know that that number is in lakhs).
On NDTV 24×7, Sarah Jacob was impressed with Odisha’s handling of coronavirus. “Bhubaneswar has now become coronavirus free with the recovery of all the 48 patients in the city. Odisha reported the first Covid case on 15 March and they are already coronavirus free. How has that been possible, surely there are lessons there,” she said.
Correspondent Sourav Sharma revealed, “One thing that Odisha did when it came to migrant workers was that they opened up a portal right after the lockdown was announced for people from Odisha who were living in different parts of the world. They were given the opportunity to register. The government also made arrangements for them to come back and put them in quarantine, they were prepared for massive return of migrant labourers.”
India Today’s Rajdeep Sardesai was in conversation with AAP MLA Raghav Chadha and wondered about Delhi government’s ‘philosophy’ on handling the coronavirus crisis. “Delhi, along with Mumbai is the worst hit city in the country by coronavirus. You seem to have made a conscious effort to open up this time…Is Delhi’s philosophy that maybe we should try and open up unlike Mumbai which is being very conservative,” he asked.
Chadha replied, “The mantra is that we need to protect lives and we need to protect livelihoods. Lockdown was never envisaged to be permanent or indefinite in its nature…The simple reason why a country wide lockdown was imposed was to give leg room to each state to build infrastructure.”
On ET Now, Ruchi Bhatia interviewed former finance minister P. Chidambaram on the five-tranche relief package announced by the Narendra Modi government.
“Demand doesn’t alone get increased or spurred at an individual level, you can also do that at an institutional level and that’s exactly what the government is looking to do, do you agree with the government’s prognosis?” asked Bhatia.
But Chidambaram came armed with some bitter truths — “What the problem with the Indian economy is that it was already in a slowdown. The government seems to think that the economy was roaring at 7 per cent or 8 per cent when the coronavirus struck us, the economy has been in a decline for nearly two years. This is a lockdown upon a slowdown, even without corona this economy would require massive stimulus.”