Prime Time
News channels were one-dimensional Thursday, broadcasting live the oath-taking of ‘ModiSarkar2.0’ (India Today).
Since Thursday morning channels indulged in speculation on who got a ‘call’ from the PM, Amit Shah or the PMO. India Today delivered ‘scoop’ after ‘scoop’ and Republic ‘mega scoops’ on MPs from BJP or the NDA who received the call.
By mid-afternoon, all senior anchors across channels were in attendance and for the next few hours happily discussed who was ‘in’ and who was ‘out’.
Times Now called the scene at Rashtrapathi Bhavan a “grand swearing-in ceremony” of “Majboot Sarkar’. Republic went with ‘Modi Again’, while CNN-News 18 led with ‘#Modi sarkar dubara’.
NDTV 24×7’s Sreenivasan Jain and Nidhi Razdan described the setting as “grand and spectacular” and pointed out there were sufficient services like water and seating arrangements for the guests.
In the rush to break news, goof-ups are inevitable. And so WION aired the wrong photograph of the prime minister of Bhutan — much to the displeasure of some Bhutanese. The channel subsequently apologized for the error.
We regret the inadvertent error, which occurred due to the nature of a newsroom processing real-time information through multiple teams. It was rectified as soon as it was noticed.
— WION (@WIONews) May 30, 2019
After live coverage of the swearing-in, news channels were back doing what they do best — studio discussions.
NDTV India opened its prime time on a completely different note. It played a clip of 5 September 2014 (Teacher’s day) when a student asked Narendra Modi, “how can I become Prime Minister of India”. Modi had jokingly replied, “Prepare for 2024 elections, so that I remain safe till then”.
The channel then switched to Thursday’s swearing-in ceremony. Anchor Ravish Kumar remarked, “Agricultural-centric India became event-centric today.”
Republic: Arnab Goswami discussed the upcoming challenges for the newly elected ministers.
Political analyst Ravi Srivastava said, “Unemployment is killing the country — that should be the main agenda of the government.” On Jaishankar’s entry, senior researcher Sushant Sareen said, “(he) is a brilliant guy, whatever ministry he gets he will be great”.
Times Now: Consulting editor Maroof Raza was worried about the workload of each minister. “There is a need to re-think how much we want to burden which ministry”.
Political analyst Shehzad Poonawalla deliberated on which portfolio would be allotted to Amit Shah. “(he) has a good knack for finance”.
Anchor Padmaja Joshi asked journalist Shekhar Iyer about the possible merging of home and defence ministries. “I don’t see a merger…to form the ministry of internal security,” he replied.
There was another interesting tit-bit.
While MPs competed for ministerial berths, news channels jostled for the No.1 spot in the TRPs. Times Now, India Today, CNN-News 18 and Republic each claimed to be the top channel with the highest TRPs throughout the day.
Front page
All newspapers have banner headlines for Thursday’s big event: the oath-taking of Narendra Modi and his council of ministers.
The Times of India’s headline is catchy and crisp — “After the surge, the purge”.
It says the “free hand” granted to Modi after his overwhelming victory is evident in the way he “replaced 40% of his ministers, dropping veterans like Sushma Swaraj and Suresh Prabhu” and “sprung a surprise by picking former foreign secretary S. Jaishankar as a Cabinet minister.” Swaraj was the external affairs minister in the previous government.
TOI also takes it upon itself to psychoanalyse Modi’s choices: “The PM made it clear that the process of raising a new rung of leaders had begun in right earnest and he wouldn’t be constrained by reputations”. It also writes, “There are six women among 58 members of the council of ministers. There were nine in the outgoing council.”
The Hindu in “Modi takes oath with 57 ministers at glittering event”, writes “Prime Minister Modi’s bold broad strokes…. showed that he was determined to use the vast elbow room the 353 score of the NDA in Parliament has afforded him.”
It adds, “The government formation exercise was significant as much for those who took oath and those excluded”, referring to Sushma Swaraj and former Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.
Hindustan Times is obvious and prosaic in its headline — “Team Modi 2.0 sworn in”. It says Modi “attempted to accommodate most partners, although key ally and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar decided to stay away.”
The Indian Express goes the full distance across eight columns with it take: quotes from the ministers’ oath of allegiance— “Will faithfully and conscientiously discharge my duties as Minister for the Union…Will do right to all manner of people”.
A landscape photograph of all the ministers behind Modi, who bends in gratitude, accompanies the report, which is fascinated with the numbers: “The new Council of Ministers has 24 cabinet ministers, 9 ministers of state with independent charge and 24 ministers of state” with a total of “24 new faces”.
In its ‘Explained’, Express focuses on the Modi-Shah partnership. Modi has “clearly signalled his (Shah’s) political weight in the government by placing him (Shah) as the second most senior in the ministerial pecking order, just after Rajnath Singh”.
The Telegraph focuses on this too. Its headline ignores all other aspects — Modi included — to read, “Amit Shah in Cabinet”. “Shah’s entry — although not as the number two in the pecking order, as expected — marked the high point”, it writes.
The newspapers are unable to devote much space on Page 1 to the new cabinet on account of a plethora of advertisements. The Times of India, Hindustan Times and The Indian Express all carry half-page advertisements on their front pages and front page flaps.
Inside pages: TOI, Express and HT dedicate two full pages to Modi’s new ministers on their inside pages. While HT calls it ‘Mix of Old and New in NDA 2.0’, TOI puts it more bluntly — “These are the men and women who will run India for the next 5 years”. Express sticks to its fondness for quirky headlines, calling the new cabinet “Modi – 2.024”.
With no allocation of portfolios Thursday, newspapers were limited to profiling the ministers.
The largest chunk of space was given to Amit Shah and S Jaishankar. TOI says, “Shah of total politics, made a grand entry into Union Cabinet”, while Express, simply profiles him.
Jaishankar’s entry is also lauded by most newspapers, calling it a “boost to the cabinet.”
The Hindu, on the other hand, highlights DMK MPs skipping the swearing-in ceremony as Stalin was not invited to the event.
Dropping of prominent names from the previous Modi cabinet such as Sushma Swaraj, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, Maneka Gandhi and Mahesh Sharma gets mention in the inside pages.
However, speculation on the reasons for their exit runs thin. HT gives a list of those dropped while TOI provides one-liners on its front page flap ‘Who’s Out’ — “Maneka Gandhi acidic remarks during campaign cost her”.
Other news
There is little space for other news this morning, but HT makes “Farm relief, new MSP regime on govt’s to-do list” its second lead. It writes the government is “geared towards achieving the single goal of doubling agricultural incomes — a legacy of its first term in office.”
The Hindu, on the other hand, remembers Rahul Gandhi in “Back at work after six days, Rahul calls on Sharad Pawar”, and the NRC case in the Supreme Court in “Give fair hearing to those not included in NRC, SC tells Assam”.
(With inputs from Shailaja Bajpai, Ratnadeep Choudhary and Harshit Mansukhani)