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.