Trump once mulled launching a TV channel of his own. This was when the results of the 2016 Presidential Elections were about to be ‘outed’ and Trump thought Hillary will take his a## in real-time, before an international TV audience, and he’ll have to return to building Trump Towers! As it happened history was made and Trump TV never launched.

NaMo TV we hear is not Modi’s idea. Neither is it BJP subterfuge. Its ownership details are hazy. Which brain or brains set it up is the best-kept secret in India right now. What is National Security Advisor Ajit Doval doing, shouldn’t he be trying to nail the owners of NaMo TV, if not for the sake of national security, at least for the sake of NaMo alias Narendra Modi alias Prime Minister of India?

Even if NaMo TV is doing only good to NaMo’s re-election effort, Doval cannot be in the dark. After all, it’s a matter of national insecurity and the Prime Minister cannot stop talking of national security in his election speeches, which this confirmed illegal entity, NaMo TV, telecasts 24/7 on DTH platforms without required permissions mandatory for broadcasting agencies/TV channels.

Funny! I&B Minister Rajyavardhan Rathore has no clue who owns and runs NaMo TV. Doesn’t that put a question mark on his writ in I&B? If the ministry, which deals exclusively with ‘information’ and ‘broadcasting’, is in the dark, what sort of ship is Rathore running? With an Olympics silver in shooting, the man should have been on target. Instead, he’s trapped in a shooting dilemma all his own!

According to a report, an I&B official had this to say: “There have been instances of cable operators airing Pakistani or Chinese channels without permission in some places but this is possibly the first time when an Indian television channel, possibly owned by a politician or a political party, has gone on air without any permission.”

Modi, everybody knows, is a believer in all’s fair in love and war, and elections. He also spends taxpayer money freely on publicity, his own publicity. State broadcaster Doordarshan, which is supposed to be autonomous, is also Modi-friendly, and Modi-saturated. The Prime Minister’s name and face-recognition is total and complete, thanks to Prasar Bharati and its trapped heads.

Besides, most private TV channels shamelessly give 24/7 coverage to Narendra Modi. One channel, which analyses Modi’s speeches by counting how many times he says which word in his speeches, should do a count of how many times its anchors take Modi’s name in an hour! Of course, the ‘why’ will not be hard to answer! Modi actually doesn’t need NaMo TV, not when the Republic has times now only for Modi alone.

For now, NaMo TV’s owners are as ghostly as some say are the chances of Modi returning to power in 2019, though if you watch NaMo TV 24/7, it gives an impression altogether different. Its ghostly owners and promoters will ultimately be discovered and who invented NaMo TV will be out in the open. If it’s a television version of the NaMo App, it is a mystery why Rathore and Doval do not know who owns the shebang. It must have an office, surely. If DRDO can shoot down a satellite in low earth orbit, what’s so difficult tracking down to earth NaMo TV promoters?

Rathore is ex-Army and Doval is self-styled chameleon-reincarnated, who boasts he can openly hide in enemy territory and escape detection from the best and worst of the Pakistani ISI. Their reputations are at stake. ‘Finding NaMo TV owners’ should be mission possible, it’s there on all DTH platforms unlike Barkha Dutt and Kapil Sibal’s Tiranga TV which is finding it very hard to DTH. (IPA Service)