Lending credence to the rumours that popular Telugu news channel NTV has stopped the most viewed news show “Live with KSR” in the morning hours under pressure from powers-that-be, senior journalist and anchor of the show Kommineni Srinivasa Rao finally spilled the beans as to why he had to discontinue the show.
In his blog post, Kommineni said he had remained silent all these days despite receiving several SMS and mails over his sudden disappearance from the live show on NTV only because he thought things would become normal after some time.
“It was true that my show was stopped under political pressure. People in power did not like my straightforwardness and tried to arm-twist the channel management. I did not want to create any trouble for the management and hence, I opted out of the channel and went to Canada with the knowledge of the management. I thought things would become normal after some time, but it did not happen,” he explained.
Kommineni said he always wondered whether the government would be scared of a journalist.
“I was aware of such incidents in the past, but I did not expect it would happen in my case, because I never considered myself such a powerful journalist. I know how the NTV management had to suffer when the AP government blocked the channel in the state for a few months. I did not want to create further troubles to the channel and hence, I came out though the management did not want to lose me,” he said.
In any case, the entire episode had given Kommineni a lot of credibility, though not all sections of people might not have liked his show. He may or may not get job elsewhere, but he enjoys the highest satisfaction of shaking the Chandrababu Naidu government!
