Letters to the editor dated November 5, 2020

This refers to ‘High handed’ (November 5). It appears Arnab Goswami is charged under Section 306 of IPC (abetment to suicide) based on a letter written by the deceased. While police authorities have every right to open the case which was already closed, the timing and the circumstances in which the case has been reopened have raised eyebrows. As rightly pointed out, Arnab could have been subjected to sustained investigation prior to effecting his arrest. Also, the law seems to apply to different people differently.

For example, the same Section 306 of IPC is pending against senior politicians and high profile ministers against whom the judicial process seem to move at snail’s pace. Overall applicability of law seems to be discriminatory and are used selectively to settle political scores if the brand of reporting is not to one’s liking, especially against media houses.

Chennai

The high-profile journalist has been apprehended in a closed, two-year-old case of ‘abetment to suicide’ of the interior designer Anvay Naik. Arnab Goswami has been hyper critical of the Shiv Sena government in Maharashtra, formed in alliance with the NCP and the Congress, for the way the State’s police handled the investigation into the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput.

While hoping that the courts grant bail to the TV anchor, journalists, especially those working for the visual media, should perform their jobs guided by the values of honesty, fairness, independence, diligence and accountability.

For the sake of increasing the TRP ratings of their channels, they should not assume the combined role of prosecutor, juror and judge and pronounce the accused as guilty, in sensational cases, even before the courts have taken up the same.

Where sensationalism rules the roost, credibility becomes the casualty.

Chennai

It’s naïve that members of the press expect preferential status from the police. A more measured response would be to allow law to take its own course and to report objectively on the merits of the case under which Arnab Goswami has been charged. In chasing TRPs, ethics have fallen by the wayside and slander has taken the place of honest news reporting.

It makes one feel that Arnab Goswami is stewing in a soup of his own making.

Chennai

This refers to ‘Will consumer be the economy’s white knight?’ (November 5). Domestic consumption far outweighs exports that are largely of commodities and capital goods. What distinguishes an economist from a politician is the range of his vision. In a slump, while the minister would look for an rapid uptick in market sentiments by boosting consumption, the economist would look to beef up infrastructure and easy money flow to create fresh jobs and, thereby, lift economic growth.

But the common thread that runs through these divergent approaches is the primacy of savings, the healthy level of which drove the reforms of the 1990s. At that time, gross domestic savings formed 37 per cent of GDP and today it is at 22 per cent.

Navi Mumbai

That close to 73 per cent of Indians come under the “low consumption” category is disconcerting, especially in these pandemic times. These are the people who have lost jobs, have no money to buy even items of daily necessities (leave aside white goods) and are surviving on loans taken at high rates of interest from moneylenders.

That our economic revival does not depend on the well-being of these poor souls is proof again of the inequity in the distribution of wealth in the country. The government must put more money in the hands of the deprived.

Pune

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