ARNAB - GLADIATOR OF THE NEWS ROOM

India is good at adopting franchise. The most popular reality shows on television are franchise of American originals. Now news channels are replicating the trend.

The niche created by Arnab Goswami as the face, voice, anchor and editorial head of Times Now is now a story of the past. Arnab in his new avatar is pushing aggressively his new channel Republic along this less trod, despised-and-still-liked path.

The brash and pugnacious style made so familiar by Arnab is a take off on Fox News. Fox made its currency by branding its anchors as opinionated and combative. It chose to challenge the moderate and liberal apostles of the old school journalism.

In India Arnab decided to cultivate a similar cult of journalism. He cocked a snook at his colleagues and challenged the established copy book norms of conservative news presentation.

The more the journalist tribe raised hue and cry about his style of operating the more mileage Arnab garnered in terms of TRP's. 

His base of viewers were a captive audience who bayed for blood of studio guests. Arnab went along and did a mayhem. 

Apparently his erstwhile employer, The Benett and Coleman Ltd., faced heat from somewhere high up and eased the star anchor out.

Arnab has now started his new innings at the Republic. It's tone is more raucous and rough. It embraces strident nationalism as before, but has become viciously belligerent and malicious. The reporting borders on yellow journalism. Sample the unbridled attack on Shashi Tharoor. He has got embroiled in a lawsuited for 'stealing' content from this previous employer, The Times Now. 

It is a begining of a tumultous innings. Long ago he has thrown to the winds the polite fiction of being a middle of the road liberal journalist. Now he is a performer, who dabbles in the art of making a good profit from the days news. 

WAKE UP YOGI

The Yogi cabinet has taken a slew of decisions that impact on a narrow few. Special diesel and petrol coupons for the privileged legislators and construction of Mansarovar House at the cost of 50 crore are two such decisions that have been taken.

A giant statute of Lord Shiva is to be erected in Varanasi's Dasamedh Ghat in which is going to face the famed Kashi Vishwanath mandir.
These decisions again raise the uncomfortable question that to what constituency is the Yogi government focusing. What exactly is the priority of the government and why development projects are not given preeminence ?

The government seems to be follwing an unashamed saffon agenda. Peripherial Hindu  concerns are getting their pound of flesh from the government, and tokenism is replacing policy formulation.
On the law and order front, situation is fast slipping out of hand. Saharanpur is case in the point.

Caste violence is again rearing its ugly head. Sporadic communal clashes are happening off and on. The government is busy shuffling and reshuffling its bureuacratic and setting deadlines for setting the house in order.

Sad part is that the signals emanating from the most high in the state are soft. They don't augur hard business for trouble mongers. Empty sloganeering won't do. This Yogi has to understand. He should mean business at the policy level. Hard nosed policy making is required. Strong measures are needed. Religious rhetoric should be done away with and ''a government for all' should urgently show its work on the streets.