Institutionally, there is a lack of access to information from our leaders, and we don’t seem to complain, said Rajdeep Sardesai, Consulting Editor, India Today Television. He was speaking at the launch of his new book, Newsman , organised by the Chennai Chapter of the FICCI Ladies Organisation (FLO), the women’s wing of the Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce & Industry on Saturday, in the city.
In a discussion with members of the FLO, Nancy Sathish and Priya Gautham, Mr. Sardesai spoke about how there had been very rare instances of Chief Ministers or Prime Ministers having free and open media interactions, where they encouraged a range of questions. “Mahatma Gandhi’s personal was his political. Our politicians these days are first event managers with regard to the schemes announced and then they think about what to do for the people,” he said.
Recalling how the national media had been rather late in their coverage of the devastating floods of 2015 in Chennai, Mr. Sardesai admitted that it had been a shocking lapse on the part of the media back then. “The situation now is, however, better as English television channels are waking up to the fact that a majority of their viewers are from the south,” he said.
Mr. Sardesai said that Bollywood could truly learn a lot from Southern Cinema as the stars here had proven to be very committed towards politics or even on coming out and speaking about issues.
“There have been many instances in Bollywood where stars have given in to political demands of censorship and this reflects a certain cowardice,” he said.
When asked about the recent happenings in Tamil Nadu with actors announcing their political entry, he pointed out that it was more of a move based on their star quality. Anupama Shivaraman, Chairperson, FICCI FLO Chennai and N. Ram, Chairman of The Hindu Publishing Group received the first copies of the book.
