On Saturday (January 28), controversial news anchor Sreenivasan Jain called it quits after a 3-decade stint at the leftist propaganda news outlet, NDTV.
The development was confirmed by him on social media. In a tweet, he said, “Hi all. An amazing, nearly three-decade-long run at NDTV comes to an end today. The decision to resign wasn’t easy, but .. it is what it is. More later.”
Sreenivasan Jain had been mired in controversies throughout his career as a news anchor. In July last year, he furnished a surety bond of ₹50,000 to secure bail for dubious fact-checker Mohammed Zubair, whom he described as a ‘close friend.’
In August 2021, he cast aspersions about India’s indigenously developed Covid-19 vaccine, Covaxin. He made a startling claim that Dr N K Arora, Chairperson of the National Vaccine Advisory Group, said that the initial batches of Covaxin ‘were not of the right quality’. He later deleted his tweet.
Interestingly, Sreenivasan Jain has been humiliated by his guests on multiple occasions.
“I find you prejudiced. I find NDTV prejudiced against the government…The press is not a political animal. You are supposed to be unprejudiced,” businessman Rakesh Jhunjhunwala once told him.
He also attempted to solicit negative comments against the Modi government from HDFC Chairman Deepak Parekh. Instead of having his wish fulfilled, he got told to his face that all the discussion about curbing dissent and intolerance was exaggerated and the government was willing to discuss matters.
However, the true highlight of his career was his attempt to downplay a vicious plot to assassinate Prime Minister Narendra Modi by Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist Ishrat Jahan.
He had claimed that terrorists such as Ishrat Jahan, gunned down by the Gujarat Police during an encounter, did not come to kill the then Gujarat Chief Minister but to do a ‘chota-mota‘ (small-time) bomb blast.
Under the garb of informing the viewers about the CBI investigation into the encounter, the NDTV journalist had insinuated that since Ishrat Jahan had come to only execute a small-time terror attack,she ought to have been treated well by the Gujarat police.
While conveying that the terrorist deserved a ‘fair trial’, he tried to paint terrorism as a ‘no-big-deal’ issue. His vicious attempt to provide intellectual cover fire to a slain terrorist has been the key highlight of his stint at NDTV.