Solo guesswork

IN Media Watch Briefs | 09/11/2015

Who came the closest to getting the final seat outcome in Bihar right? Neither a pollster nor journalist nor political pundit, but an economist. In a column in the Indian Express on November 5 Surjit Bhalla gave 175 seats to JDU+ and 60 seats to the NDA. He says he arrived at those figures based on historical analysis,a visit to Bihar and some statistical deductions based on its not being a multi party fight. The visit was undertaken in the company of Prannoy Roy, Shekhar Gupta and others as part of an election time tradition that began in 1998. Those two however did not come up with any such prediction or insight based on the same visit and in fact NDTV's exit poll predicted a BJP win.

TAGS

NDTV Surjit Bhalla Indian Express

Subscribe To The Newsletter

Media Watch Briefs

Amazon resisting voluntary censorship

The new term for self censorship is voluntary censorship, as proposed by companies like Netflix and Hotstar. ET reports that streaming video service Amazon Prime is opposing a move by its peers to adopt a voluntary censorship code in anticipation of the Indian government coming up with its own rules. Amazon is resisting because it fears that it may alienate paying subscribers.

Let the games begin

Clearly, the run to the 2019 elections is on. A journalist received a call from someone saying they were from Aajtak channel and were conducting a survey, asking whom she was going to vote for in 2019. On being told that her vote was secret, the caller assumed she wasn't going to vote for 'Modiji'. The caller, a woman, also didn't identify herself. A month or two earlier the same journalist received a call, this time from a man, asking if she was going to vote for the BSP.