I was in Delhi for a few days last week to cover, among other issues, the pre-election mood for a few Nepali publications.

Now, it is not as if I am totally unfamiliar with the Indian media scene. We watch Indian news channels here in Kathmandu and know the nature of the beast. I have friends in the Indian TV business who had come to cover Nepal elections last year but ended up reporting on adventure sports despite the huge Maoist win. “Boss, no one is interested in Nepali politics. Rafting will sell,” they had said. And we saw India TV go hysterical when the Maoist government appointed Nepali priests in the Pashupati Temple to replaces the ones from Karnataka – the media induced pressure forced ‘secularists’ like Mulayam Singh and Amar Singh, on a visit to Kathmandu, to force the government to retract and got venom spewing Ram Yatris like L K Advani to make calls to Prachanda to convey his ‘disappointment’. Continue reading Exclusive TV tamasha at Ashoka Road →