Thread by @churumuri

🪡 The day after the #UnionBudget is the closest India’s media comes to peddling pornography. There’s so much public display of affection—ranging from flirting to petting, from kissing to kissing the ass—that the moral police could easily charge it with indecency. (1/5)

2️⃣ There are the usual diabetes-inducing 10/10 pronouncements of the “captains of industry”, drafted by hacks-turned-PR shills, competing word for word with newspaper headlines, which compete with #PIB releases. Like, “#Nirmala presents ‘Amrit Kaal’ budget”.

3️⃣ Although India has been warned of the “2A variant” by former chief economic advisor Arvind Subramaniam, only @gautam_adani has dropped his pearls of wisdom on @nsitharaman’s offering. Mukesh Ambani has let employees of his execrable TV channels to bare their patriotic fangs.

https://twitter.com/gautam_adani/status/1488530129576165378

4️⃣ This year’s coverage is remarkable for how @PMOIndia’s postponement of #AccheDin by a cool 25 years is telegraphed. Corporate fat cats—with no idea of a ravaged reality—paint the court-approved mirage of 2047, as if all goals as of 2022 have been accomplished by @narendramodi.

5️⃣ @EconomicTimes features the wellknown economist @AmitShah on its front page. Taking a break from the arduous task of picking his nose (when not stirring the communal pot in #UttarPradesh), he smells a “distinctive air of optimism and self-confidence in India’s economic air”.

6️⃣ Sucking up also known as chamchagiri is clearly going to be an art form in #AmritKaal. All the empty slogans dreamed up by @NITIAayog—#AtmaNirbharBharat, #GatiShakti, #MakeInIndia—are regurgitated ad nauseam, as if someone is taking note. And someone definitely is. #Pegasus

7️⃣ In an ocean of unctuous coverage, at least one English newspaper has the balls to call out the #Budget for what it is. Then again, @OrissaPOSTLive is headquartered in faraway #Bhubaneswar and owned by Tathagata Satpathy, the former BJD MP. @SatpathyLive

8️⃣ In the vast ocean that is Indian journalism, cartoonists continue to be one of the few pockets still not receiving instructions via #WhatsApp. As more Indians become poor, jobless, hungry and homeless, Subhani sees through the Emperor’s new clothes, in @DeccanChronicle.