News channels back to usual business

Now that Anna’s fast is over ‘insanity’ seems to be returning to our news channel.   All speculations about Parliament accepting Anna’s demands have now been put to rest… Anna Hazare finally broke his fast today morning and the country has been celebrating.

And with all this News channels are back to their usual ways. Since there is no more breaking news and all the people associated with the movment and those against the movement have been reasonably exploited its time to find a new celebrity… and guess who is this celebrity – its IKRA !

Who is Ikra ? Ikra is one of the two little girls who gave coconut water to Anna today. Her 5 minutes of screen presence this morning has made her a celebrity (at least in the eyes of some reporters). I am sure that  if Ikra had any idea what she was going to go through after doing this noble act, she would have thought twice.

News channel reporters were asking her some of the most stupid questions and I can’t help but replicate them verbatim over here

Reporter: Aap ko kaisa laga jab Anna ne anshan toda?

Ikra: Accha laga (obviously J)

Reporter: Aap ne Anna se kya kaha ?

Ikra: Paani Pilo (obvious again J)

Reporter: Anna ne aapse kya kaha ?

Ikra: Thank you (what else do you expect Anna to say)

Poor reporter couldn’t get any dramatic answers  from the kid so he turned to Ikra’s uncle who he initially thought was her father.

The uncle was part of the committee that was managing the event and hence could answer the questions much to the reporter’s satisfaction. ..But even he had to answer some really stupid questions first.

I guess someone will have to start an equally massive agitation to bring an end to this insanity and insensitivity of the news channels.

Ab to Mera Channel bhi Anna !

The Anna Hazare fever has gripped the entire nation for the last couple of weeks. It has brought people from all regions, religions, classes and age-group together and everyone is wearing the same cap – “I am Anna”. I was not born during the freedom movement but I am sure it must have been similar.

What was not present during the freedom movement was the minute by minute coverage by numerous television channels. And that according to me has helped Anna’s movement spread like fire. The news channels have unanimously supported the cause unlike what happened during Baba Ramdev’s movement where it was a divided house. So kudos to the Indian News channels for their unrelenting support to this movement.

But I have an interesting observation to make here. Life has just not been easy for our News channel reporters. They all survive on ‘Exclusive news and interviews”. This is something that they have been struggling to get ever since the fast began. And the credit goes to team Anna, who has been absolutely transparent about all its meetings and discussions leaving no room for speculation. No exclusive bytes have been given and it looks like all the news channels also saying – “Main bhi Anna – tu bhi Anna”

So the channels are trying out various other things to make up for this loss. They are getting all kinds of panelists for debates and discussions (saw yesteryear’s actor Raja Bundela also) but that’s still not making any difference.

And what they did yesterday was hilarious. As soon as there was some news about what  steps the government might take to end the fast, anchors on a few channels jumped with excitement saying that it was only their channel that had predicted that these actions could be taken and how accurate they were – what an achievement, I say. But after two hours when things turned out the other way, they didn’t know where to hide their face.

I think the news channels are doing a fabulous job and at this stage should not bother about exclusive news. My request to them – lets follows Anna’s strategy of being ‘inclusive’ and lets forget ‘exclusive’

Main bhi Anna- tub hi Anna, ab to saara desh hai Anna.