The launch of veteran journalist and news anchor Sheila Chaman’s book, “Doordarshan Diaries” was a tribute to an era gone by. As the legendary Salma Sultan wrote in the book, “Doordarshan was the magic box that created history.” And Sheila Chaman was a very vital part of that era, for she was the first person to face the camera when Doordarshan went from black and white to colour with a bilingual broadcast.
As she writes, “It was to be a watershed moment for the nation. New camera equipment, toned down make-up and finer adjustments needed to be made to suit the new look in colour.” She goes on to narrate how she tried on different coloured saris before the final one was selected. In fact, Sheila also quotes one of her colleagues’ memoirs, Sarla Maheswari who was asked to anchor the first Hindi bulletin in colour, recalls how she had selected a pink sari for the occasion but when she went on air, she heard her producer call out: “What is this purple sari? With purple make-up and hair tone also purple!” Clearly, it took a lot of hits and misses to get where we are today and these were the pioneers who led the movement.
Sheila’s book is a must read for it is a first-hand account from someone who was part of this historic era and she captures all the fun and the nuances that have got us to where we are today. The launch saw a full house with former Cabinet Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad releasing the book. And one got to see a whole lot of old, familiar faces cheering for the author in the audience as well. As the book says, it was indeed the Golden Era of television.
Rahul Gandhi has made the Vote Chori issue his number one tirade against the BJP government. In this, he has the support of the entire I.N.D.I.A bloc as voter list manipulation is something each party fears both at the state and at the central level. But there is a catch. Take the RJD for instance. While Tejashwi Yadav was there with Rahul during the yatra, there is a feeling within his party that after a point the Mahagathbandhan should raise other issues as well, such as joblessness, the problem of migration and other local problems.
A senior RJD leader also complained that a lot of time has been wasted on this issue, while other issues that Tejashwi used to talk of earlier to appeal to the youth such as unemployment opportunities have been hijacked by Prashant Kishor. Likewise for Akhilesh Yadav. The Samajwadi Party leader has taken to holding a press conference a day at the party HQ in Lucknow. But the issues he raised are local ones to target the Yogi government. In that, Akhilesh Yadav is behaving more like the leader of opposition at the Assembly level because for him, the real battleground is Uttar Pradesh and not the larger theatre pan India.
Both Tejashwi and Akhilesh would like to focus more on local issues, targeting their respective state CMs and other local leaders than take the fight straight to the Prime Minister. But Rahul’s goals are different. For him the fight is with Narendra Modi. The agenda for all is anti BJP and NDA. But the difference lies in the priorities.
It does look as if the BJP will announce J.P. Nadda’s replacement post the Bihar polls. The decision, as RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat made it clear during his interactions with journalists recently, has been left to the BJP with a “take your own time” advice. However, that hasn’t stopped the speculation both in the media and at the party office. The list seems to have narrowed down to a candidate that would be a party faithful. There will be no kowtowing to symbolic representation to appease a certain case or region. The candidate will also not be an outsider, but will be someone well versed in the party organisation and ideology. And also someone who would be able to travel the length and breadth of the country and connect with the karyakartas.
The gender card also seems to be out because of the last category as from all the three “eligible” women candidates, Vasundhara Raje Scindia, Nirmala Sitaraman and Smriti Irani, the only one who fills the last criterion of a pan India connect with the party workers would be Vasundhara. But one is not quite sure of her connect with the current party leadership. Hence this once again narrows the list down to the few names that are doing the rounds—Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Dharmendra Pradhan.
One wonders if the BJP leadership will go with one of these or again do what it does best and come up with a totally unexpected name. The catch in that is that the unexpected cuts both ways, as they have recently seen in the case of Jagdeep Dhankhar, the former Vice President.
