Compulsive contrarians found a new Balakot, says Arun Jaitley

NEWDELHI: Terming social media a “powerful tool of technology” that could be used and misused, Union finance minister Arun Jaitley on Saturday said information was sometimes posted on it without verification. As an example, he cited the case of the Indian Air Force operation against terror bases in Pakistan’s Balakot on February 26.

“…Recently our air force in KPK [Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, a province in Pakistan] reached Balakot. Before anyone could get information, somebody started saying it is near the LoC [Line of Control]. Some, whom I call compulsive contrarians, found a new Balakot and did not check that the other Bala Kote is in Poonch. Why would our air force attack our own people? These are social media aberrations,” he said.

Jaitley was speaking at the

book launch of Mann Ki Baat - A

Social Revolution on Radio ,a collection of 50 editions of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Mann

Ki Baat programme that is aired on public broadcaster All India Radio.

Even as he criticised the media’s alleged tendency to set the agenda instead of report it, Jaitley said the time was ripe for the radio and the print medium to “strike back and regain their space”.

“Whenever Atal Bihari Vajpayee would be travelling or be at home, he heard news on radio. It was not agenda setting news like it is now,” he said.

Referring to the radio as a powerful tool of communication, Jaitley said it left a deeper footprint because of the power of recall.

He recalled how Mahatma Gandhi used the medium to communicate with people during the freedom struggle.

“In the last 100 years, marketing experts can analyse how a simple speaker like Gandhi, who was not a forceful speaker, had a footprint that lasted,” he said.

The minister said PM Modi had recognised the reach of radio and chosen to communicate with the people through his radio programme that is translated into several regional languages.

“The time for long-winded statements is over. People will switch off, so answers and statements should be crisp,” he said.

JAITLEY WAS SPEAKING AT THE BOOK LAUNCH OF ‘MANN KI BAAT- A SOCIAL REVOLUTION ON RADIO’, A COLLECTION OF 50 EDITIONS OF PM’S MANN KI BAAT THAT IS AIRED ON ALL INDIA RADIO