My first job after getting up from the bed is to switch on the television set for daily dose of news which I missed while sleeping followed by any other routine work of morning. Today, while browsing through the channels, I was stuck on India TV, a news channel headed by Rajat Sharma. Here, an astrological programme was going on. Some Acharya was giving ‘BHAVISHYAVANI’ on the news channel. He claims to be a fortune teller and astrologer who predicts your horoscope and numerological fortune and reveals the connection between your celestial mechanics and the terrestrial dynamics. He guaranteed 99 per cent success, if you followed his instructions. He was giving tips on how to possess a man whom you love. He gave one remedy and some pooja methods to perform in the evening. I wish if I follow that remedy and method I might get Julian Assange. I really had crush on him. If this astrologer gives 99 per cent guarantee of his methods and predictions, then at least I should reach Assange’s gate. These kinds of shows are nothing but a TRP gimmick, if this astrologer is so perfect in predicting things and has solutions and remedy for whatever you want you can possess then he should actually try to own that channel 24/7 and telecast his rubbish thing. As he has all the remedies, I am sure he won’t need to struggle much to earn money, because he has given lots of such tips earlier to bring wealth in life. Indian Ministry of Information & Broadcasting should issue advisories to these TV channels for spreading “misinformation, fear and horror”. Every morning you inject fear in common man’s mind with these programmes. If one news channel says that today your lucky colour is white, then other channel’s astrologer says green. Whom should we trust and from morning 7 to 9 are such a vital time of your life and they waste it for such scrap. I know, we are not forced to see such programmes but it’s a psyche of a common man. Everyone is in distress today and these stupid things make you believe in the astrologer’s comments.
These are minor predictions; recently I saw a bunch of astrologers on Aaj Tak and India TV were predicting that the world will come to an end. People panicked, this programme was telecasted repeatedly. The world has not moved anywhere, it’s still there but the astrologers changed. And new programme started with Indu Jain. It’s too funny. One woman called Indu asked how she will get her missing son home. She predicted and said you have to keep some coins in the right direction of main door and your son will come back. Hello Indu Jain, every day minimum four children are reportedly missing from Mumbai and they have not returned so far, why don’t you ask police to follow these remedies?
One woman suspects her hubby having extra marital affairs, and she again gives solution and promises her that her hubby will henceforth never look at any woman further. Solutions work or not I don’t know but that particular call charges are Rs. Six per minute. At least, you have to hold on the phone for 5 minutes means you will definitely lose minimum Rs. 30 from your balance. Such telecast generates lakhs of rupees through these types of programme. I think, family court should hire people like Indu Jain to solve divorce issues and resettle the families with her remedies.
The Indian Broadcasting Federation (IBF) and the News Broadcasters Association (NBA) members should be more caution while broadcasting such content. Moreover, hardcore news channels should stop practicing such things. The commercial aspects of news channels are sucking the brains of common man by installing such superstition. They claim that daily dose of ‘Bhavishyavani’ aims to give you practical solutions to all your problems. Just dial 0120 – 2517251 and make a refreshing start to know your stars, just a phone call away. How emotional fools we are? They want to extract benefits by pinching your pocket early in the morning, and for one in ten thousands by fluke if that works, he becomes publicity manager for the TV channels and astrologers. The much faster and effective publicity is word of mouth publicity, these entire bunch of astrologers are very good at social engineering. They are better than even Kevin Mitnick. They are the real hackers, they hack your faith, your emotions and over all, the revenue from your pocket without your knowledge. I don’t know anyone who gets to reach their destination through these programmes. On the other hand, we take miracle dose to combat our problems, but nothing actually works. One of my employees took Rs. 7000 loan from office. The very next day, I got to know that he has taken the loan to buy an astrological stone to make his stars bright. His faith was forcing him to invest in stone for easy money and quick remedy. He wore that stone, still working on same profile, every month Rs. 2000 is deducted from his salary against that loan and poor guy still waiting for that golden moment where he can scale to his career peak with the help of stone. As a boss, I know only of one miracle which will bring success in your life, and that is hard work. Finally, he got frustrated and wanted to sell the stone back, he got only 30% return, 70% of his money was falsely wasted in superstition. Imagine, how many like him must be getting fooled every day?
I remember an astrologer called Dr. Sharma predicted the occurrence of a mass casualty in the country within the time span of 90 days in his programme “Rashichaal” on “Sahara Samay”, on the eve of Shani Amavasya. And on the very same day, there was bomb blast attack in Pune. And the next day, the channel announced this is the first major terror strike since the 26/11 Mumbai attacks killing at least eight and injuring 53 lives. It came true on the very same day with the occurrence of our astrologer’s predictions. Damn fools, so many such terror incidences happened in our country without any predictions, and moreover his 90 days period to make believe about such predictions because India is under threat and terror attack. Why he failed to predict who, when and where the terror attack gonna take place. At least, police force would have blessed him in abundance. If these astrologers can really guarantee and predict such big things then shouldn’t they be recruiting them in police force, CBI and with undercover agents, so the investigation may come up with accurate results. No astrologer ever told when Kasab will be hanged, what would be the fate of Afzal guru, are we going to get money back from Swiss Bank or not. Why none of the astrologer predicted about J Dey’s murder?
Why these astrologers predict only on channels with specific numbers and they are not providing their personal numbers? Television is the next fastest-growing medium. It is also the largest contributor to global growth; television’s share of the global ad market has risen steadily over time and shows no sign of reaching a plateau. The amount of time viewers spend watching television continues to increase, and even though viewers are presented with a wider choice of channels than ever. The biggest television show attracting record audiences is astrology and predictions; one of the major revenue chunks is earned by these scraps.
