It is not often that our Prime Minister holds a press conference or a meeting with senior editors and journalists. The last such one was held five months back with select senior editors from the print media. So expectations were running high over his encounter on Wednesday with the electronic media, especially in the backdrop of scams and scandals that the media has been relentlessly pursuing in recent months. Yet, the meeting, televised live over all the news channels turned out to be a disappointing, damp squib.

Dr Manmohan Singh was at his expressionless best, displaying no emotions whatsoever and content with reading out prepared statements as answers for the contentious questions such as the Devas-Antrix deal. Helping him in the endeavour were the editors and journalists themselves, some of them anchors, renowned for their high-decibel coverage on prime time news.

If one expected sharp, pointed questions to pin Dr Singh down either on the various scams or the investigations or Mr Kapil Sibal's infamous defence of Mr Raja or on his party's electoral alliance talks with the DMK in Tamil Nadu, well, it was only disappointment in store.

‘Touching' faith

Of course, the first question was on the 2G scam but Dr Singh got away with the incredible answer that he believed Mr Raja when he told him that he (Mr Raja) was not up to any hanky-panky. Touching as his faith in his Cabinet colleague is, only the naïve would believe that the Prime Minister had no other means of accessing information on his own government's policy other than through the concerned Minister. After this, the only other question that came close to pinning Dr Singh down was on the Antrix-Devas deal, which came towards the end of the meeting. Again, Dr Singh read out from a long note that was nothing but a recap of events since July 2010 when ISRO, acting on an expose by Business Line , briefed the Space Commission for the first time on the Devas deal.

The anchor who raised this question was quick with a second one on the “zero loss” claim of Mr Sibal only to be put down by the Prime Minister's media adviser with the rather sharp remark: “this is not an interrogation of the Prime Minister”.

Missed THE CHANCE

It was sad to see even prominent, senior anchors raising such uninteresting questions as to whether Dr Singh would lead the government if the party was voted back to power in the next election, which is not due until 2014! The question that really should get the prize for being the most insipid one was from this journalist who wanted to know whether Dr Singh supports the Indian team in the World Cup! Can he support Pakistan or Australia, or even if he did, say so openly?? Was this a question for a high-profile interaction with the Prime Minister in the current troubled backdrop?

And, then, there was this journalist from a prominent West Asian channel with this shocker of a question: does Dr Singh expect the people's uprising in Egypt and other Middle East countries to spread to our own Kashmir, north-east and other Maoist infested areas of the country? Maybe someone should point out the difference between the autocratic dictatorships in Egypt and other countries in that region that suppress dissent, and India, with its democracy, warts and all, that allows free dissent.

If Dr Singh missed the chance to score a few points over his detractors, the electronic media failed to prove itself and wasted what was an excellent opportunity to ask some tough questions. Just imagine what could have been achieved if only the prominent anchors and editors had collaborated in asking their questions, dividing the tough ones amongst themselves to ensure that Dr Singh replied to all the contentious issues.

But, then, given the bitter competition for TRPs and eyeballs amongst these channels, it was probably too much to expect.

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