The Supreme Court has lifted a five-year ban on the airing of the infamous Amar Singh CD which, along with the Niira Radia tapes, must be made required listening in journalism schools for the unvarnished view it offers of how politicians, industrialists, bureaucrats, film stars, celebrities, middlemen and journalists operate.
Among the two-dozen conversations on the Amar Singh CD—fondly referred to in media circles as “Amar Singh ki amar kahaniyan“—is one involving Prabhu Chawla, the former editor of India Today and currently the editorial director of The New Indian Express.
The conversation is centred on a press conference Amar Singh is threatening to call to tell the world about how an Aaj Tak reporter (Prachi Jawadekar Wagh, now with NDTV) sneaked into a hospital ward in Bombay, where the film star Amitabh Bachchan was recuperating and allegedly invaded his privacy. Chawla’s call to the then Samajawadi Party leader is aimed at stalling the press meet.
For the record, Chawla also figures in the Niira Radia tapes, and Chawla himself has put up the transcript of his conversation with the lobbyist on his website to set the record straight.
Also read: ‘TV is dishing out cheap opinion’
Sad, but I actually guffawed when Amar Singh wiped the floor with Prabhu Chawla, telling the groveling editor, “Either you are a friend…. then behave like a friend! Or you are a fu*ker… then be prepared to get fu*ked!”
Shame on Prabhu Chawla — he appears to be a lapdog when he is expected to be a watchdog.
[…] just finished listening to a leaked telephone conversation, purportedly between Amar Singh, an Indian politician, and Prabhu Chawla, the editor of an […]