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Media's Nirbhaya Moment

Working for a corporate, every year we need to take mandatory trainings to identify, report and prevent behaviours which are deemed as 'sexual harassment' at the workplace. Per law, 'sexual innuendos' which make a woman uncomfortable constitute sexual harassment.

Despite having taken these trainings, I had never imagined that I would get a witness a prominent minster in the Modi government be 'sexually harassed' on live TV by Aajtak, India's #1 Hindi news channel owned by the India Today Group during a show meant to evaluate the performance of the HRD ministry.

Ashok S, an editor of AajTak asks a question loaded with sexual innuendo - watch it here



For a moment there was a glee on Ashok's face which soon vanishes. He tried to recover by stating that his reference was only to the fact that Smitri Irani is a college drop out. I wonder if AajTak would treat Sonia Gandhi the same way... for she is only a school dropout..... 

Its been 24 hours since the incident, there is no outrage from the liberal media or women's or minority   groups. There is even no apology from the India Today Group.

This is not the 1st time, that India Today Group has messed up in a big way 

a) Aroon Purie, the owner of India today group and the editor of India Today magazine had confessed to charges of plagiarism. You can read the story here
b) Rajdeep Sardesai, employed with the India Today Group made racist comments on the Gujarati community ( he called them people with money but NO class) and then got into a scuffle at MSG. You can see the vide here
c) Punya Prasun Bajpai , editor gave away his editorial rights to Arvind Kejriwal. See the video here

Plagiarism, Racist rants, Scuffles with people, Lack of Integrity and now sexual innuendos on live TV.  After 40 years in journalism if this is all that the India Today Group can achieve, I feel sorry for them. 

Media, its time to look within .... 


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