Whenever Karan Thapar interviews sparks fly and the interviewees wriggle in their seats, their bp shoots up. Some of them end up in tears. One such person was Kapil Dev. Narendra Modi even walked out unable to bear the intensity of Karan’s questioning. But in stark contrast Karan Thapar’s interviewing Chidambaram (on June 29th, CNN IBN) was an anti-climax. There was no line of questioning as to why the dollar rates were shored up against the interest of crude oil purchase price. Karan did not forget to mention about the agricultural loan waivers, but what about the corporate loan defaulters, which runs into 1000s of crores. The FM said that there was still subsidy of Rs. 303 on gas cylinders (the current price increase of Rs.50 has pushed up the cylinder price to almost Rs.350). When he said this it was as if the oil companies are giving Rs. 303 to the consumer with every cylinder supply. This so called subsidy figure is arrived at by the oil companies and minister himself. They can as well say it is 3003 or 30,003. Who cares? There was no questioning by Karan Thapar on the former CM Jayalalitha’s accusation that Participatory Notes in share market encouraged funds from terrorists entering and leaving the country and that the security of the nation itself is at stake. All this can only be attributed to the fact that the English news channels in India serve as mouth pieces for big corporates. The big corporates never rubs any FM on the wrong side. They even gave Chidambaram the Minister of the Year Award last year through one of these news channels. How he became Minister of the Year, what were the criteria, what were other ministers’ performances God only knows. The news channels may go to god forsaken places with their camera crew and transmission van for live telecast of some baby falling into borewell. But that doesn’t mean they really care for the poor, the lower middle class or the country’s economy, which has met the same fate.

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