Less than 48 hours after Donald Trump was announced President-elect of the United States, he said the protests against him were "very unfair." "Just had a very open and successful presidential election. Now professional protesters, incited by the media, are protesting. Very unfair!" he tweeted.
It seems Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting Venkaiah Naidu has taken a page out of Trump's book.
While people are in trouble after the announcement of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's demonetisation scheme, queuing outside banks and ATMs, Naidu thinks it's wrong for television channels to highlight the aam aadmi's plight.
Speaking at Economic Editors' Conference 2016, Naidu said, "TV channels can show the inconvenience caused by demonetisation, but it's not fair to only dwell on it."
"Taklif accha hai (Trouble is good)," the minister said defending the government's move and calling it a 'historic step' in the fight against black money.
"Buses, metros, everything except black money is moving, nothing has come to a halt," Naidu said.
TV channels should show a larger picture on the benefits of the move for the country, he added.
Naidu said that the government had been taking steps related to curbing the black money menace ever since it came to power.
He said that soon after coming to power, the government, at its first Cabinet meeting, had set up an SIT to bring back large amounts of money stashed abroad.
"Some people are saying it was done all of a sudden, people should have been given advance notice...Advance notice for what? I am not able to understand," Naidu said.
Naidu also said that the government had decided to ease the "annual renewal" norms for TV channels and existing broadcasters can continue operations by simply paying annual permission fee 60 days before the due date.
"As part of the government's initiative of ease of doing business, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has completely done away with the process of obtaining an annual renewal for TV channels in the current form," he said.
Naidu said that "broadcasters who have been given the permission for uplinking or downlinking can continue their operations by simply paying the annual permission fee upto 60 days before the due date, which by itself will be treated as permission for continuation of a channel for a further period of one year."
This decision, the minister emphasised, would benefit a total of 963 channels and teleports.
The I&B ministry, Naidu said, is committed to the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to promote ease of doing business and will continue to take more steps in consultation with stakeholders.
You can watch the video here.
(With inputs from Agencies)
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