Aids or Afghanistan?

It was an exclusive gathering at 7 Race Course road, an occasion to savour the hospitality of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee at his residence. After formally launching the CII-Aids Trust, the Prime Minister started to take questions from mediapersons covering the event. As it turned out, hardnosed newshounds didn’t care as much about the Aids trust as the crisis brewing in neighbouring Afghanistan. And so, a good number of their questions were about the danger of impending war and India’s preparedness.

While Mr Vajpayee, a veteran diplomat, was quite at ease taking the questions, the information officer of the PMO was visibly disturbed. “From next time, we will not invite you all to such functions if you ask questions which are not relevant to the occasion. Ask only about Aids,” he fiercely reprimanded the journos. But didn’t CII president Sanjiv Goenka declare from the podium that Aids and terrorism were the two great threats of the 21st century? So, how were the queries out of context?

Child’s play
Even though it’s clear to most that the 24 hour news channel of the DD bouquet, DD News, is being wiped out altogether, officials insist on terming it as a restructuring exercise. ‘Who’s Doordarshan trying to kid’, quipped one smart alec soon after the national broadcaster made public its intention to replace the content of DD News channel with programmes meant for kids (among other things).

Interestingly, some newshounds are also quite disturbed by the turn of events, with one of them plaintively pleading, “C’mon DD, think about ‘restructuring’ the kiddie stuff, will ya!” And others are wondering why DD is intent on scrapping the news channel at a time when dedicated news channels are in high demand. All are now keeping a close tab on DD National — apparently, DD National has planned to up its news content in line with a true public broadcaster’s mandate!