Hamid Ansari praises PM Modi’s 'Mann Ki Baat' radio programme

Vice President Hamid Ansari on Friday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s radio programme ‘Mann Ki Baat’ is an ingenious and influential communication platform.

Ansari said leaders of men and women necessarily feel the need to communicate with their followers in order to get the message across, generate enthusiasm and repel doubts.

The vice president said history abounds in instances of leaders moving crowds with the power of words.

“Semantics differentiates between an orator and a demagogue; both speak to persuade; both play on emotions. The difference is often subjective and depends on the trust reposed by the audience,” he said.

A good example of it was the four-term American President Franklin Roosevelt who once confessed to being a juggler who never let his left hand know what the right-hand does and who was perfectly willing to mislead and tell untruths, the vice president said in a function organised at the Rashtrapati Bhavan on the day the NDA government completed three years in office.

The event was to mark the release of two books—‘Mann Ki Baat: A Social Revolution on Radio’ authored by Rajesh Jain and ‘Marching with a Billion: Analysing Narendra Modi’s Government at Midterm’ authored by Uday Muhurkar.

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“This is a special occasion, by virtue of its subject, its theme, and its venue. The two books released here relate to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. One is the text of his weekly radio broadcasts, the other a commentary to highlight its virtues,” he said.

Ansari said ‘Mann Ki Baat’; takes a traditional medium like the radio and marries it to the entire spectrum of communication technologies available from television to the internet, from social media to mobile telephony.

“Mann Ki Baat has become an important element of Modi ji’s direct-to-people communication strategy,” he said.

President Pranab Mukherjee, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, Finance Minister Arun Jailtey, Secretary to the President, Omita Paul and other dignitaries were present on the occasion.