Samikhsya Bureau
Let alone the trails of damage caused to Bhubaneswar or Cuttack, but the astounding neglect towards the holy city of Puri that has been ravaged completely after Cyclone Fani made its landfall there is disturbing. And an astounding apathy shown by the national media towards Odisha in general and Puri in specific was baffling!
National media’s clinical isolation from the plights, which threatens to push Puri back by at least ten years is unfortunate. For them what is paramount is only the on going election process and the trivial tu-tu-mein-mein between the BJP and Congress where name calling has become the teaser headlines.
Regardless of the political allegiance all the players who were there once practically bent to a state of genuflection for votes are away. Even the BJP’s high profile national spokesperson Sambit Patra, who was once seen walking down the grand road of Puri carrying an idol of lord Jagannath, now can only be seen taking pot shots at the Congress in television studios.
Let that apart, people of Puri are a peeved lot by the raw deal meted out to them by the leading national channels who, till the other day, were seen lounging at Naveen Niwas for sound-bites on the electoral outcome.
Now Odisha has suddenly turned to a no man’s land and they are happy with inputs from the agencies. This is a sorry state of affair indeed.
It is not to say that Odisha can’t sustain to restore itself minus the national media but what, apparently, is manifested by the journos, whether in Delhi or elsewhere, is the demonstration of a noticeable fatigue from any kind of stuff other than politics. Channels there, as it appears, remain a kind of topping on a cake to sweeten the dispensation at the Centre come-what-may.
What is bizarre to read or watch in national media is some issues in electoral politics that has become irrelevant. Evening time ‘dangals’ often get dismaying over issues of venomous nature through trading of barbs those have lost political significance for the common voter.
