Zee’s Sudhir Chaudhary has a Bible question, NDTV’s Vishnu Som sees ‘red’ at Sensex surge

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

Zee News anchor and editor-in-chief Sudhir Chaudhary | Photo: @sudhirchaudhary.72 | Facebook

New Delhi: From the Sensex breaching the 50,000-mark for the first time and actor Kamal Hassan’s big political decision to US President Joseph Biden’s oath-taking —Thursday prime time was abuzz views on the latest news.

On NDTV 24×7, anchor Vishnu Som discussed the new Sensex milestone on ‘Left, Right and Centre’. “It started off the bank with a bang, a fresh high but it ended in the red, which led to the market mood not being able to sustain that high,” observed Som in some wonder.

Ashish Kumar Chauhan, MD and CEO of Bombay Stock Exchange, responded: “It has taken 42 years to touch 50,000, yesterday it closed at 49,700+ and everyone expected that if the US markets remain up then India will also open with a positive framework… but some of the local issues in banking probably brought down the Bankex (banking index).”

Linking the matter to Budget 2021, Sunil Sanghai, Chair of FICCI National Committee on Capital Markets had some advice for the government: “We should focus on fiscal prudence; we need investments in order to kick start the economy, and for investments we need to churn innovative areas.”

Mirror Now’s Tanvi Shukla went South to look at political developments in poll-bound Tamil Nadu. With many Congress leaders asking Kamal Haasan to join hands with the DMK-Congress alliance, Shukla asked if Haasan is likely to accept this offer.

“Kamal Haasan wants to go against the BJP. So his association with like-minded parties like us will definitely establish a very strong and healthy government both at the Centre and state,” said a hopeful MK Vishnu Prasad, Congress MP.

That annoyed AIADMK spokesperson Kovai Sathyan: “…Congress-DMK is in shambles and doldrums. When the Congress government tabled the farm bills in the assembly, DMK didn’t take part in it. There’s a huge amount of ambiguity and inter-party politics.”

And on to Covid-19. After questions were raised as to why BJP leaders aren’t leading by example and taking the vaccine, Republic anchor Arnav Goswami, as was to be expected, defended the government calling the criticism a mere “smear campaign”.

“Sources are saying that in the meeting between the chief ministers and the Prime Minister it was said that politicians over the age of 50 will be taking the vaccine [in the second phase]. This scepticism that ruling party politicians will not take the vaccine is wrong,” he said.

JD U spokesperson, Dr Sunil Singh, agreed — “They first politicized the vaccine — it’s deplorable that they are doubting the safety and efficacy. The Health Ministry and scientists have decided the criteria for who will get it first.”

Atiq Ur Rehman, an Islamic Scholar was more critical of the politicians: “The political class is the frontline warrior for me, they should be vaccinated.”

At Zee News, anchor Sudhir Chaudhary took offence at the ‘liberal secular’ US head of state taking the oath of office on a Bible.

“We are going to show a pathbreaking analysis on America today, a kind of analysis nobody else in the world will show you,” boasted Chaudhary, saying that his report will solve India’s long-fought dilemma too.

As a part of the “path-breaking” report the anchor read from the Ramcharitramanas and the Constitution.

“Imagine if an Indian official took oath on the Ramcharitramanas instead of the Constitution!” exclaimed Chaudhary. “People would’ve termed such an oath ‘communal’, yet nobody found a problem with Joe Biden’s Bible, because we’ve been conditioned to never question America.”

Aaj Tak’s Anjana Om Kashyap discussed India Today’s opinion poll ‘Mood of the Nation’ which said the BJP would win 291 seats if elections were held today.

Kashyap was interested in the part of the poll which dealt with the controversial farm laws — 34 per cent of those polled favoured the laws while 32 per cent believed that they will only help business lobbyists.

BJP Member of Parliament Sudhanshu Trivedi drew parallels between the purported intention of the laws and the television industry, “Instead of Doordarshan today we have private news channels, and with this privatisation all aspects of this market reap benefits,” he said.

Rakesh Tikait of the Bharat Kisan Union, however, fired back saying, “We agree with everyone, all we want is some law regarding MSP [minimum support price]. The government has brought in other laws but the need of the hour is to make sure that sales don’t stoop down even lower,” he said.

(With inputs from Shubhangi Misra)