When you call yourself a news channel, you might want to be ready for ‘slow news days’. You cannot just say whatever you want and then turn it into news.
Pratidin Time , a local news channel in Assam, ran a video segment about how girls in Guwahati are wearing shorts (also colloquially called ‘half pants’) these days and how that’s a sign of decadence.
They shot footage of girls wearing skirts and shorts in public, without their consent, and then packaged it to create a segment whose text could very well be the rant of a conservative fossil, trying to fight the modern world.
If that is not derogatory enough, they start the entire news piece with an analogy about how even monkeys understand the importance of clothing, but nope, not these girls.
Let’s get one thing straight – Pratidin Time is NOT the custodian of our ‘culture’. No one, let alone a regressive news channel, has the right to tell people what they can or cannot wear.
Thankfully, the comment section to the YouTube link to the video mostly has sane voices of people who are not holding back criticism of the news coverage of Pratidin Time.