On the last day of August 2020, India and China were once again locked in horns at the border. As India’s COVID graph spiralled upwards, India’s economy plunged, contracting 23.9% year-on-year.
Jobs, lives, livelihood, families, businesses have been ruined after months of a poorly thought-through lockdown, even as crony capitalism of the Ambani and Adani kind have enjoyed halcyon days.
Yet, despite the scale of the economic devastation, India’s vast and influential language media, whose readers and viewers are most at risk, downplay the staggering collapse of the economy.
Barring Gujarat Samachar, Dainik Bhaskar, Jan Satta and Kannada Prabha none of the language newspapers showcase the 23.9% drop in GDP growth rate as lead story. Most prefer the easier-to-digest death of the former President Pranab Mukherjee.
Among English dailies, only the Nagpur-based English newspaper The Hitavada does not feature India’s staggering economic collapse under Narendra Modi on the front page.
The Hitavada has the news on page 9.
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Meanwhile, Times Now came up with a 23.9-carat advertisement of India’s brain-dead news TV.
IJR 