Punjabi Antenna
Talk shows focus on issues
Randeep Wadehra

Talk shows are powerful opinion-making tools. They involve viewers in relevant public discourses that help engender debate at the macro (states, governments etc) as well as micro (institutions, individuals) levels. Every channel worth its salt has at least one talk show and PTC News is no exception. In fact it has several—Punjab Speaks, Guftagu and Straight Talk.

Punjab Speaks has been taking up issues that affect their lives directly. Recently it featured two men who not only dared to think out of the box but also cared enough to put money where their mouths were. The contributions of two Punjabi NRIs, Lord Daljit Rana of Ireland and Dr Gurdev Gill of Canada, are in the form of enduring public assets that are already impacting the lives of rural folks in a positive manner. The former has invested crores in bringing futuristic education to the rural Punjab, and the latter is engaged in modernising villages.

Although the sharp and well-informed moderator, Reeta Sharma, was a bit too voluble at times, she did succeed in drawing out not only the two guests—who emerged confident and earnest vis-`E0-vis their dream projects—but also managed to enthuse the invited audience. Among the latter the elderly Budh Singh stood out. He has been instrumental in setting up and running hospitals that cater to the poor, and has also opened nursing schools. He is very much desi. One hopes to see more such episodes that focus on developmental/educational issues rather than the more seductive politics.

Talking of politics, our politicians are consummate actors. You realise this while watching them on PTC News channel’s Straight Talk and Guftagu. Avinash Rai Khanna of BJP—on Guftagu— swears by his party’s friendship with the Akali Dal despite what happened in the recent zila parishad and blocksSamiti elections. More importantly, he doesn’t miss the opportunity to promote himself by enumerating how he got bus-stand shelters and community marriage-halls built in his constituency, and also narrating how a kid contacted him over mobile phone inviting him to a marriage in her family—which he felt duty-bound to attend. But when asked about more substantial issues like development, he skillfully parried.

In a later episode Satpal Jain—a ‘humble and shrewd’ former BJP MP from Chandigarh—let loose verbal fusillades against his Congress rival. In another episode the state Congress president Rajinder Kaur Bhattal had enough barbs in her quiver against Akalis as well as her opponents within the party led by her b`EAte noire Amarinder Singh— who had featured in another episode firing his own salvos.

Similarly, in Straight Talk we had Sukhpal Khaira blaming the Akalis for turning Punjab into Bihar—law-and-order wise. When the anchor Ritesh Lakhi reminded him that earlier Congress regimes, too, had used strong-arm tactics to rig up landslide victories in previous local elections, Khaira had no choice but to agree. In an earlier episode state Congress spokesperson Bir Devinder Singh had described the poll violence as evidence of the SAD’s tribal outlook, conveniently forgetting the role of the previous Congress regimes in perpetuating this trend.

It is good to see that Lakhi—who is hosting both Guftagu and Straight Talk—is effectively using his interviewing skills, honed at Zee Punjabi’s Khabarsaar, to unravel the state’s political mindset. As for the public opinion, it must be feeding on the inputs provided by the talk shows.