What our regular media does not talk about....

The power of the written word, the power of media, both print and visual media cannot be underestimated. This has even given it the status of ‘Fourth pillar’ in a democracy. But the question now arises whether our media is impartially telling all that it learns to the people? Is there a filtering apparatus in place, which controls the nature of ‘News’- deciding what the common man should know and what he/she should not know?

To elaborate this we can examine one issue at a time. Recently the lavish wedding of Gali Janardhan Reddy was all over the TV channels. At a time when people were spending entire days in front of banks and ATMs, facing severe cash crunch, naturally everyone was outraged. This was a former BJP minister who has financed successful BJP governments in both his state, Karnataka and the centre. Inspite of central orders asking not to attend, Yedurappa was very much present, giving the party a bad name.

Now one month after demonetization, the common man’s plight is no better. The queues continue and Rs 500 notes are still not seen by many. The Rs 2000 notes have only increased everyone’s misery. Many weddings have been cancelled and many have lost precious lives and livelihoods. Remember a cash withdrawal limit of Rs 2.5 lakhs has been placed on weddings after many cancelled weddings?

But can anyone stop the lavishness inherent in the marriages of the rich and famous -corporate and political leaders? No. The ill-gotten money is there and what better occasion to show it off than a big, fat Indian wedding? What can be easily done is to prevent the media from highlighting the weddings.

The most recent such high-profile wedding was that of Nitin Gadkari’s daughter Ketki on December 8^th, exactly a month after the demonetization move. This was filtered and nowhere reported in such detail,esp. in our TV channels which are the main sources for many .

The reception of Ketki Gadkari was held in Lutyens’ bungalow, decorated to resemble a fairyland on Moti Lal Nehru Marg in Delhi and the guests led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and his entire Cabinet of BJP MPs, including Subramanian Swamy, top industrialists and famous Bollywood stars. Gadkari had chartered private aircraft to ferry guests to Nagpur for the wedding, including yoga guru Baba Ramdev. The wedding was attended by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat. One of his millionaire Cabinet colleagues presented his daughter with a diamond necklace.

Another wedding was that of Kartik, Union minister for culture Mahesh Sharma’s son, held at a five-star hotel on 27^th November. Mahesh Sharma had said that he had made the entire payment by cheque after opposition party criticism.

What about the wedding of the niece of Ambani on December 6^th? After all we must not forget, he is the richest man of India. The pre-wedding bash in Mumbai in November was also a most lavish affair.

Meanwhile we can take a break from standing in the long queues and look at these pictures. Some at least are not suffering from demonetisation.

-UDAAN