The Indian bureaucracy is always eager to please their political masters, even if the stupidity is obvious to others. So what if Modi called Ahmed Patel (Gujarat Congress boss) his one-time friend and that he considers Priyanka Robert Vadra like his daughter. Priyanka has now come-back with the (silly) retort that she is Rajiv’s daughter and Patel has denied that he was ever friendly with Modi.
Given the hair-raising stuff that politicians of all stripes are saying to get the masses excited, mobilized and yes, polarized (sample: Abu Azmi says today that muslim voters in UP who did not vote for the Samajwadi Party must be forcibly DNA tested) this is all very thin milk.
……..
Acknowledging
that certain portions of the Narendra Modi interview on Doordarshan
“were apparently edited”, Prasar Bharati CEO Jawhar Sircar on Friday
said the public broadcaster had failed to get the autonomy it was
seeking and pointed a finger at information and broadcasting minister
Manish Tewari for the failure to break the stranglehold.
In a
strongly-worded letter to the Prasar Bharati board, under which
Doordarshan and All India Radio function, Sircar said “It appears that
while portions critical of Doordarshan were telecast, certain comments
on other personalities were apparently edited” in the Modi interview
telecast on April 27.
Stating that “since questions have been raised in the public domain
about the impartiality and motives of the public broadcaster”, the
Prasar Bharati board had “taken several resolutions in the last two
years, seeking more operational autonomy from the ministry, but it has
failed to do so”, Sircar said.
He said that “in a way,
therefore, the ministry of information and broadcasting lost an
opportunity to convince a young minister (Manish Tewari) to break this
long traditional linkage between the ministry and the News Division,
which has continued unabated even after Prasar Bharati was born and
assigned its distinct role in 1997”.
Indicating the manner in
which the ministry controls the Prasar Bharati, he said: “The mechanisms
of appointment, transfers, career assessments and even punitive actions
against senior officials of the News Division are bound to cast a
‘shadow’, in some form”.
A copy of the letter is available with IANS.
Doordarshan had edited out portions from Modi’s interview where he had
referred to Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and to Congress president Sonia
Gandhi’s political advisor Ahmed Patel.
The move had created a
political storm with the Bharatiya Janata Party alleging government
control over the public broadcaster.
that certain portions of the Narendra Modi interview on Doordarshan
“were apparently edited”, Prasar Bharati CEO Jawhar Sircar on Friday
said the public broadcaster had failed to get the autonomy it was
seeking and pointed a finger at information and broadcasting minister
Manish Tewari for the failure to break the stranglehold.
In a
strongly-worded letter to the Prasar Bharati board, under which
Doordarshan and All India Radio function, Sircar said “It appears that
while portions critical of Doordarshan were telecast, certain comments
on other personalities were apparently edited” in the Modi interview
telecast on April 27.
Stating that “since questions have been raised in the public domain
about the impartiality and motives of the public broadcaster”, the
Prasar Bharati board had “taken several resolutions in the last two
years, seeking more operational autonomy from the ministry, but it has
failed to do so”, Sircar said.
He said that “in a way,
therefore, the ministry of information and broadcasting lost an
opportunity to convince a young minister (Manish Tewari) to break this
long traditional linkage between the ministry and the News Division,
which has continued unabated even after Prasar Bharati was born and
assigned its distinct role in 1997”.
Indicating the manner in
which the ministry controls the Prasar Bharati, he said: “The mechanisms
of appointment, transfers, career assessments and even punitive actions
against senior officials of the News Division are bound to cast a
‘shadow’, in some form”.
A copy of the letter is available with IANS.
Doordarshan had edited out portions from Modi’s interview where he had
referred to Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and to Congress president Sonia
Gandhi’s political advisor Ahmed Patel.
The move had created a
political storm with the Bharatiya Janata Party alleging government
control over the public broadcaster.
……..
Link: http://www.ndtv.com/elections/article/election-2014/after-narendra-modi-interview-prasar-bharati-ceo-talks-of-shadow-of-government-517511
……
regards