Who is @smitaprakash

1)
She is the wife of the ANI founder owner’s son. She started her career with ANI as an intern in 1986, got married to the son in 1988.

#SmitaPrakash #ModiInterview

2) #smitaprakash is the daughter of Inna Ramamohan Rao, former director of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. After this marriage, it is reported that #ANI started getting Govt patronage. With Reuters buying a stake, they became a monopoly.

3) During the first NDA govt, #ANI as a private media enterprise made it very big with Govt patronage and projects. ANI was into video/news syndication and production and not into investigative reporting, for us to expect ethics from #SmitaPrakash

4) In many TV debates, #SmitaPrakash has used the word ‘US’ referring to BJP when she is representing ANI. This is perhaps because ANI considers itself a private news syndicate and not a media outlet expected to be neutral. Mind you, ANI is the biggest TV news agency in India.

The reason why Mr Modi uses #ANI and #SmitaPrakash is not only that Smita is part of BJP but because ANI has a monopoly over video news syndication in India. Perhaps they have monopoly even for print news feed. Without them no media house can complete their pages or programs.