You Grilled the Minister and Now Pay the Price

The Crime:

The UPA government's economic policies seem to be aimed at slowing down the economy and taking us back to the dark socialist days of price-control where "profit" was a bad word. It is good to see a TV journalist [Udayan Mukherjee]putting the Commerce Minister Kamal Nath in a spot of bother by grilling him on his absurd policies which are moving towards price control. This journalist (whose name I forget) shows a good grasp of economics and I hope we see more such intelligent interviews rather than the quasi-scripted farces that parade as interviews on Indian news channels.[Vantage Point]

The Price:

Angry minister Can a minister target a media house just because he didn't like the line of questioning adopted by one of its journalists? Cut up with the aggressive questioning on cement prices by an CNBC anchor [Udayan Mukherjee]during a programme, Commerce Minister Kamal Nath decided to bar the channel from his press conferences. He held a press conference and asked his officials to ask the channel's reporters to leave. A woman reporter from Awaz and her cameramen were quietly taken aside by one of Nath's personal staff and told as much. The rest of the media corps present watched without protest.[The Hoot]