Parliament 2.0

I remember a science question from my school days. Who invented Television? John Baird. Even though now when I Google, I find many others had given the concept with some prototypes, prior to Baird. Irrespective of the inventor/s, the invention can be termed as a medium powerful enough to bring a social, economic change.  

     

Circa 1991. India underwent economic reforms including liberalization of broadcasting industry. This opened the gates to a lot of private players, few foreign as well, to explore and leverage the Indian market. Indian channels such as NDTV, Aaj Tak, Zee started as child and now have become behemoths in their domains. They have covered, discussed, debated, exposed all events concerning the average Indian.

 

MMS. I do have a lot of regard for the Indian Premiere for his profound simplicity (as it appears to be) and sheer uprightness (as it appears to be). However, he proves to be a lame duck when it comes to being vociferous in shielding his government from the blatant scams and scandals, hitting left, right and center.

Governments post-independence had a gala time with no watchdog and only state controlled media. The scams and scandals were the brain-child of these governments, only to have become an intrepid monster with the electors being taken into account only once in 5 years. Media is now challenging and changing all this crap. Indian Parliament functions in sessions giving an easy absenteeism to the elected. The debates, even though are LIVE and recorded , tend to more of an eyewash than the real substance. Be it any scam, major or minor, the political parties all seem to be hand-in glove when it comes to paisa. The Television, media, however seems to be making a difference.

 

 

I have been watching couple of debates on NDTV and I am in the awe of anchors such as Ravish Kumar, Abhigyan Prakash. Same goes to other newschannels as well. They are upright, no-nonsense people, willing to confront the politico-honchos and make them bite the dust, right in front of the angered diaspora.  Such is the tenacity of arguments based on facts and figures that cause netas and their nominees gasping for breath and struggling for words. Media has been tearing into the tainted system burgeoning with illiterate and goon like figures and exposing their real face in the public.

All this is changing things for good. The netas are now part of debates aired by a private newschannel and this is turning into a virtual parliament. They are being made more accountable, more answerable to the general public. Any scamster is chased right to his door-step and is gherao-ed, confronted with the media. This is forcing political parties to wake-up and be more conscious of their image, branding. They are turning more and more cautious in their acts and are asking their tainted mantris to quit the posts.

I can only hope that television and media would be real savior of India in next few decades. The newschannels will continue to expose the tainted politicians and virtually put an end to their career. Political parties would be forced to cleanse themselves from head to toe for the evil elements harbored.