Sagarika's open lies ...

The Gujarat Chief Minister, Mr. Narendra Modi gave two speeches in Delhi yesterday. Both were laced with content, and the reaction of the usual suspects was on predictable lines. In the morning, he spoke at a FICCI event and addressed women entrepreneurs. In the evening, he spoke at a Network 18 event, Think India. 

Since the reactions of the "national media" was going on predictable lines, I thought there was no point writing a blog deriding their illogical arguments. But they upped the ante this time. 

The Deputy Editor of CNN-IBN, whose parent company Network 18 organised this event tweets this:

Why didn't Modi stay and take any questions? Was he afraid of another India Today conclave situation? Not fair, Modiji! #thinkindia

This is shocking beyond belief. She is resorting to blatant lies in today's day and age. And she holds the position of Deputy Editor in the channel! 

Mr. Narendra spoke at the event for about an hour. He took multiple questions for nearly 35 minutes. He took questions on a range of topics - centre-state relations; FDI; Trade with other countries; privitisation; labour reforms; land acquisition; defence equipment; message to the youth - he took questions from Raghav Bahl who is the MD of Network18. He took some questions from the audience too. All this on Live TV. LIVE even on CNN-IBN. And yet the deputy editor has blatantly decided to lie to her followers by asking "Why didn't Modi stay and take any questions?"

And what does she mean by "Was he afraid of another India Today conclave situation?" 

Editor-in-Chief on CNN-IBN, Rajdeep Sardesai had this to say (amongst other things):

#thinkIndia Modi did speak well on the subject given: 'Less govt, more governance'. But shld have been ready to take more qs.

These folks are never happy I guess! There has to be a "but" just for the sake of it! Anyways, while that is a matter of opinion on whether he "should have taken more questions" despite having a flight to catch, the open and blatant mis-information by the deputy editor is shameful to say the least. Worst part is that none of the CNN-IBN journos even felt it right to correct her. I guess the hatred runs very deep. 

I have asked Rajdeep Sardesai for a clarification on this and he replied. Sagarika Ghose is yet to make any attempt to correct her tweet. 

@ssudhirkumar would have been more accurate to say: should have taken more questions.

On a side note, while Mr. Modi was busy detailing many ideas, news anchors were busy deriding the “war of hashtags” on twitter. Speaks volumes about their priorities!