[Guest Author : Saakshi O. Juneja]

Rajat Sharma and his India TV team is in all certainties the most ill-informed, dim-witted and second grade group of journalists on the Indian news circuit. However there was a time when I use to actually wake-up early on Sunday morning just to watch Rajat Sharma’s (previously popular) show ‘Aap Ki Adalat’ on Zee TV. Mr. Sharma seemed a pretty cool guy. His expression-less face during the show, his thorough research work, harsh question list and his stern attitude with the guests – all made the show an exciting watch. But all this was then.

Today, Rajat Sharma and his very own news-channel, India TV uses nothing but cheap tactics and lousy subjects inorder to stand out in the overly- crowded television industry. I firmly believed that their ‘casting couch’ sting operation on Bollywood was the worst journalistic initiative to have ever taken place but sadly I couldn’t be more wrong.

These guys believe in out-doing themselves when it comes to reporting worst “Invented News” segment.

Yesterday night while filliping thru channels, I was shocked out of wits when I read, “Astrology can reveal if an individual is Homosexual”. No, this is not a joke but featured news on India TV. They interviewed couple of Indian astrologers who sincerely bragged about the technique by which they identify homosexuality traits in a person by simply looking at the position of the stars in their Kundali.

On the other hand, the news anchor Abul Nasr Iqbal had live discussion regarding the topic with five guests all belonging to different sections of society. Now the topic itself is so darn ridiculous, I am just shocked that these guests (who seemed well educated) even bothered to show up. But Mr. Abul Nasr Iqbal’s lack of basic knowledge about Homosexuality and his equally pathetic questioning style is what took the big chunk out of a decomposed cake.

For instance, when asked one of the guests (a homosexual man) whether he believed that astrology could detect homosexuality, the guy replied back with a firm ‘No’. He further went on to say that if the position of the stars basically stated his homosexuality preference than what if tomorrow the position of the same stars in his kundali change, then would he no-longer be a homosexual. So therefore the whole basis of this theory could be easily challenged.

Now to this logical answer, Mr. Iqbal replies back by asking the same guest, a gem of a question, “If you don’t agree with this, then how according to you one can distinguish if the other person is a homosexual, what are the symptoms?”.

Wow! I just find it so hard to believe that there are educated people like Mr. Iqbal, who even in this day-an-age compare homosexuality to some sort of a disease, which can be diagnosed and cured by identifying its symptoms. Thankfully, the guest (who was questioned) did not appear to be amused with Mr. Iqbal’s query and gave him a fitting reply that he did not believe homosexuality had anything to do with symptoms, he was just like the other guests present and he went on with his regular life just the way normal people do.

The hope of achieving acceptance, equal liberty and stature for the homosexual community in this country seems to be nothing but a far-fetched dream, especially when we have anchors like Mr. Iqbal and channels like India TV, who are a part of the Indian media; the media who should be in actuality using it’s power and influence to spread awareness among the society and take-up noteworthy issues regarding homosexuality community rather than wasting broadcast time, just to hype-up their TRP ratings.