New Delhi: Prime time on Tuesday night dwelt on the many ills that plague India. Republic TV put advocate Prashant Bhushan in the spotlight with the Supreme Court initiating contempt proceedings against him. Mirror Now covered Delhi’s serological survey findings and Times Now highlighted the NCERT’s replacement of the Separatism chapter from Class XII with one on Article 370.
Rohit Sardana on Aaj Tak targeted Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot’s MLAs who are staying at the Fairmont Hotel in Jaipur. “The country is in misery due to the pandemic and the MLAs are experiencing all luxuries from the past 12 days”, said Sardana. Meanwhile, Zee News proudly displayed the pictures of the “new model of the upcoming Ram Mandir in Ayodhya”.
On Republic TV, the debate was a debate in name only. In a tweet last month, advocate Prashant Bhushan had accused the Supreme Court of playing a part in the “destruction of India’s democracy” in the last six years. Now, the top has court initiated contempt proceedings against him, but Arnab Goswami pronounced the judgment already: “absolute slander”.
BJP’s spokesperson Gaurav Bhatia added, “It is a temple of justice and we serve as foot soldiers. This should have happened a long time back, Prashant Bhushan is a habitual offender.”
In the same vein, author and scientist Anand Ranganathan said, “Prashant Bhushan is an industrial scale liar, it was a long time coming. You are free to criticise any judgement but he slanders the judges.”
The lone pro-Bhushan voice, political analyst Ravi Srivastava, tried to say that “this is a case of judicial intolerance against Prashant Bhushan. He had the guts to call out corrupt judges…” but he was interrupted each time by Goswami.
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Delhi’s serological survey has revealed that 23 per cent of its population has tested positive for antibodies against coronavirus. Mirror Now’s debate with anchor Tanvi Shukla discussed what this means for the country’s fight against the pandemic.
“There’s a huge gap between the number of cases reported and the numbers this survey indicates. If the sampling design is correct, this whole thing calls for greater caution,” said Dr Thiagarajan Sundararaman, Global Coordinator of People’s Health Movement.
But AAP’s Akshay Marathe was clear that, “We are not taking any decisions based on this survey. We will not, at this point, be in a position to change or evolve our strategy based on the results of the sero survey.” Heartening, really.
In a controversial move, the NCERT has removed a chapter on separatism from the Class XII textbooks and replaced it with a lesson on the dissolution of Article 370. This was a matter of some concern on Times Now.
“Our textbooks allowed separatism to be considered as an actual representative of Indian sentiment,” BJP’s spokesperson Nupur Sharma said, on behalf of the entire country.
But advocate Babar Qadri noted, “If changing the syllabus and textbooks would ever have worked then Mahatma Gandhi, Subhash Chandra Bose would never have emerged in history.”
On NDTV India, anchor Ravish Kumar eschewed these topics to focus on the ongoing farmers’ protests in Punjab, Rajasthan, Haryana and Tamil Nadu against three new agricultural ordinances brought in by the Central government.
“Do not think that I’m trying to raise the issue as a substitute of the Ram Mandir debate on other channels. Farmers might also take interest in the Ayodhya temple, but no one takes interest in their matters,” Kumar declared.
Ravish Kumar asked why the government promptly brought these three ordinances during the pandemic, which are allegedly going to benefit traders and big corporations more than the farmers. “The government has promised to double the farmers’ income by 2022, which is not far away. Is this how it plans to achieve it?”
On News18, Amish Devgan discussed the calendar of achievements of the Modi government shared by Rahul Gandhi, and analysed the reactions to Gandhi’s tweet. “From coronavirus to China, Rahul Gandhi has targeted the Modi government over every possible issue in the past six months, but the government showed him the mirror by alleging that the Congress instigated the Delhi riots and stood with China,” Devgan said.
BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi took a dig at Rahul Gandhi: “In these past six months, Rahul Gandhi must be only looking at the calendar planning his next foreign trip.” Such an original argument.
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