TV Debates and Panelists

Below are the faces of panelists from Aaj Tak live TV debate on recent farmer crisis in MP where 5 farmers have been shot dead by police. Except Master Shyoraj Sing (Kisan Neta) and Yogendra Yadav (he has been associated with Jai Kisan Andolan for long and understands the statistics); everyone else is picked up randomly from each political party. This is not just about this debate, similar situations have been observed in most of the TV debates. Political Party spoke persons are fixed and their time with news channel is also fixed. In the selection of rest of the panelists, journalist (or show host) does not do homework and calls one person from rest of the parties.  

Faces on Aaj Talk Live TV debate on farmers crisis in MP (on June 8, 2017)

With highly dynamic politics and changing topics day by day, we may not blame journalist for fair selection of panelists. Journalists and TV hosts don't have time to do homework and if any of them have time to do so, there is no airtime for them because by the time they are ready with list of panelists, there is another trending topic to be focused on. With this dynamics, we forget the issues very soon and move on. Who cares if the problem (which was problem at some point of time) is solved or not. Real and neutral journalism is diminishing with the rise of WhatsApp, Facebook and twitter news. 

Going back to the TV debate discussion... We still have some space on TV screen and in future, few other party rep will fill in another rectangle. Journalists are doing fair job in bringing politicians (public rep) to TV debates. Some of TV debates with such panelists have gone worse and ended up in shouting and fighting. Even some of the TV hosts don't allow their panelists to speak. In case there is any neutral or expert invitee in the panel, he/she is silent or ignored in most of debates. Sometime one-to-one interview with subject matter expert is more fruitful than congested TV debates. 

Other potential debate panelists which could have been integral part of this debate but are missing would have been: 

1. Agriculture advisor to central/provincial ministry 
2. Member of agriculture policy committee 
3. A non-political professor or statistician who worked on farmer suicide data  
4. A retired (or on duty) judge who has given verdict in the past related to farmers issues 
5. A senior journalist who brought major farmers issues in past 
6. A NGO rep who is working for betterment of farmers for a long time 

From the panelist faces given in the picture, only KC Tyagi has committee experience and you know which committee? Yes, Parliamentary standing committee on Industry and not on agriculture/farming (or related). But he is not a bad choice to be a panelist. Baburav Mane from Shiv Sena is 10th pass, facing criminal charge under IPC Section 143, 145, 146, 147 and 174 (more info); what fruitful outcome we can expect from him. 

I won't count Agriculture, Finance, HRD or Home minister to be part of these debates as they are very busy and avoid appearance on TV debates but advisors would have been a better option. Having such people will not only make the debate fruitful, but also it will be more likely that discussed changes might occur as part of policy change/update in future because panelists are the real person working behind the curtains.