HRD Minister Smriti Irani once again got caught in a heated exchange on Twitter with Congress spokesperson Priyanka Chaturvedi in which she took a dig at Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi over his party’s poor show in the recent Assembly elections. The spat turned ugly yesterday when Priyanka Chaturvedi, responding to another person, raised questions about Smriti’s Z security. Click here to see the conversation. » Praveen Bardapurkar, an Aurangabad based journalist has been conferred with the ‘Prahlad Atre Award’ for journalism. He will be felicitated with this State level award on June 13 by the Acharya Atre Vikas Foundation at Saswad in Pune. » According to a recent poll Twitter saw massive traffic about the recently concluded elections in multiple states in India. It registered more than 4.5 million Tweets between April 20 and May 20, 2016. For more stats click here. » Meanwhile, after allegations of political bias, Facebook has decided to make changes aiming to refrain from bias in their “trending” stories list. “Our investigation has revealed no evidence of systematic political bias in the selection or prominence of stories included in the Trending Topics feature”, said Facebook General Counsel Colin Stretch in response to Republican US Senator John Thune.
Rahul Gandhi
Religion Vision
The Indian Government’s official public broadcaster – Prasar Bharati seems to have ‘religion vision’ glasses. In a recent tweet when they termed Muslim youths cleaning a flood ravaged temple in Chennai a “rare example of humanity” the twitterati were quick to respond. » An initiative by CNN-IBN and MobiKwik lets Chennai citizens get precious talktime so they stay connected with their loved ones. One SMS – “RECHARGECHENNAI <MobileNumber>” to 51818 or tweet – “<MobileNumber> #RechargeChennai” will get a recharge of Rs. 30 sponsored by MobiKwik. The message is constantly being flashed on CNN-IBN to spread the word. » Comments by Sonia Gandhi & Rahul Gandhi terming their court summon in the National Herald case a “political vendetta” were lambasted by Arun Jaitley. “India is not a ‘Banana Republic’ where media or Parliament will decide guilt or innocence… it’s only the court that will decide”, Jaitley said. » According to the 13th EY Capital Confidence Barometre Report, India’s media & entertainment sector reaches the top 5 in the world for investment magnetism. India ranks 4th in the world, behind US, UK, China, ahead of Germany, after investor sentiment seems to have made a significant recovery. EY estimates the Indian M&E sector, worth over $20Bn, will double in five years. » As the phase III digitization deadline approaches, TRAI firmly ruled out any extension. Urban consumers have been urged to get STBs before the year end as TV channels will be unavailable for analog retransmission starting January 1, 2016.
Hindu Vigilantism
The Quint decides to document the rise of Hindu vigilantism in Uttar Pradesh. In their documentary film – ‘THE WILD WEST OF UTTAR PRADESH’ they talk about the psyche, inspiration, and modus operandi of young recruits in the religious extremist ‘vigilante’ groups, driven by the fear of Islam. » No appearance exemption for Sonia & Rahul Gandhi as Delhi High Court found the Congress leaders’ conduct questionable in the National Herald ‘cheating and criminal breach of trust’ case. The court also confidently said that “the MO adopted by the petitioners evidences a criminal intent”. No mala fides can be alleged against Dr. Subramanian Swamy, who had filed the case in November 2012, the Judge ruled. » DD is changing its satellite. Doordarshan’s regional channels will be beamed from INSAT-4B instead of INSAT-3A with effect from 10th December. A downtime of 5 hours is planned to make the shift. » Assam journos demand a national legislation for their protection in a memorandum to PM Narendra Modi, citing rising violence, even killings, against the ‘fourth pillar’ of democracy. Read what else the Journalist Association of Assam asked for. » With BARC India moving to digital measurement, it has issued a global Request for Information (RFI) aimed at understanding capabilities of Online Video Advertising and Content measurement techniques. An RFP is to follow the information gathering phase. Interested parties can write to digitalrfi@barcindia.co.in before 24 December, 2015.
Silence Is The Best Policy?
Prominent Malayalam journalist, VP Rajeena faces a barrage of threats and abuses for speaking about instances of sexual abuse at a Madarssa. The senior journalist’s Facebook account has been blocked after she wrote the controversial post. However, many voices in Kerala have come out in support of Rajeena, asking for her account to be restored and a sane discussion with the Madarssa. » Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s questions backfired as he interacted with the students at Mount Carmel College in Bengaluru. Asking the students if the “Swachh Bharat” Campaign had been a success, he received the unexpected response – ‘yes’, leaving him red-faced. A student however came to his rescue, stating that the issue was being over-hyped for TRPs by media houses. » Google doodles the ‘Milkman of India’s’ 94th birth anniversary. Honoured as the architect of India’s White Revolution, Dr. Verghese Kurien was instrumental for his Operation Flood, the world’s largest agricultural development programme.
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