A bizarre news cycle for bizarre times.
As the economy dives to record lows and coronavirus infections spike to record highs in India, our TV news channels have offered obsessive coverage of something else entirely.
What began as a stream of relentless news stories on Rhea Chakraborty and her alleged involvement in the cases involving Sushant Singh Rajput’s death has now morphed into a battle against Bollywood and its “drug problem”.
Meanwhile, news coverage in mainstream English TV channels has barely cracked the surfaces of issues such as the aftermath of the national lockdown, its impact on migrant workers, job loss among millions due to the pandemic, the unanswered questions in the Parliament , the arrest of students , activists and academics and more.
In the middle of the pandemic, we have not even managed to get satisfactory answers from the government on oxygen shortage at hospitals , India’s “misleading” COVID death toll , and whether the country was testing enough.
As a result, some of the most biting commentary on major news events in recent times has comes from political cartoonists.
At a time when dissent and satire are prized commodities, these cartoonists have used the swipe of their pen to point to what’s been missing from our newspapers and TV screens.
Here’s a look at some of the best political cartoon in recent weeks:
On Delhi Police’s investigation of the Delhi riots
On migrant worker deaths and the government’s lack of “data”
On the vilification of Muslim UPSC aspirants on Sudarshan TV
On the Parliament and government accountability
On the state of the economy
On coronavirus, hunger, unemployment and other crises
On the Sushant Singh Rajput Case, and Rhea Chakraborty
And media’s obsession with it.