SATV, Kathmandu, Sept. 10 - This week we learned a lesson in how far governments must travel to catch up with India today.

Between watching live coverage of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s speech at the centenary celebrations of a Delhi University college on Saturday, 5 September, and his address to students at ‘NaMo for Viksit Bharat’ in Vadodara on Tuesday, 8 September, fell the shadow of a building that came crashing down, killing five students and two workers.

That’s the reality we saw even as the PM’s words about his government’s achievements in infrastructure and good governance echoed in our ears.

Satya Niketan, a Delhi PG accommodation for students, collapsed after work in its basement shook it to rubble, on the afternoon of 6 September.

From all that we have heard, seen and read in the news media – TV and digital news or the newspapers—the building had flouted pretty much every building rule in the capital. These escaped detection by the concerned authorities, chiefly the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD).

No wonder Republic TV declared, ‘Useless (nikara) MCD’ and asked if Delhi officials were ‘hand in glove’ with the owner of the building.

“If this isn’t murder, what is?” wrote The Times of India in a 7 September headline, adding that “seven precious lives lost to greed and lack of enforcement”. That’s the truth about Satya Niketan.

To see the video grab of a human face buried under the building’s debris on the front pages of Hindi newspapers such as Dainik Jagran and Navbharat Times on Monday and then watch the PM deliver rousing words while opening a 1,500 km stretch of the Dedicated Freight Corridor (“a historic achievement for 21st century India”) on Tuesday, was surreal. It was like trying to fit together two pieces of different photographs.

Page 1 of the Hindi newspaper Amar Ujala on 9 September is an example: The lead story is on PM’s ‘Jhoot ki Goonj’ comments during his speech with a photograph of him waving to students. To its right is the image of students on the street after their eviction from unsafe buildings in Satya Niketan.

Perhaps the PM’s speechwriters need a reality check. Before such public addresses, maybe they could read the headlines?

That way, the speeches may mention topical issues too, reflecting the distress we heard in TV interviews of students at Satya Niketan. They told us about the appalling conditions they were forced to live in at such PGs despite paying extortionist rates (Rs 10,00-15,000 for a bed, wrote Navbharat Times).

The sleeping system

Newspapers and TV news were scathing in their criticism of the man-made accident.

The Indian Express, in its editorial, ‘Jantar Mantar to Satya Niketan: Join the dots’, wrote that while Satya Niketan “is a routine story of a capital’s shame to which all are inured”, it also reflects “the young, the future being let down by the present.”

It added that the work needs to begin for the PM’s claims about “transformations under his watch” at Delhi University, “not to take on a hollow ring”.

Television news has been even harsher. ‘Promises only for cameras’ (Times Now); ‘Who gave permission?’ for basement work, which authorities fail to do their duty? (ABP News) These questions went from news studio to news studio.

‘Who is responsible?’ (Aaj Tak) ‘Who will answer parents?’ (NDTV), ‘This is no accident this is murder’ (News Nation TV), ‘Negligence kills students’ (CNN-News 18). ‘They came with their dreams, they left in shrouds’ (India Today), ‘People’s lives don’t matter’ (Republic TV), ‘PG kabristan’ (Zee News).

Again and again, we heard the words “apathy”, “negligence”, “corruption” used for the MCD. Often, TV anchors said the “government” was also blind to the “systemic failures” without mentioning that the BJP ran the MCD, the Delhi government, and the Centre.

“The system has been sleeping,’’ said Aaj Tak. “The system is infested by ants (deemak),” wrote Republic Bharat.

More importantly, reporters showed us the cramped lodgings where students lived. NDTV took us into one PG – narrow lanes, tangled wires outside, no light inside the matchbox kitchen, a corridor so narrow you have to walk sideways through it, a room with no ventilation and three beds joined in a row. A student said each student paid Rs 6,000-Rs 7,000 for sharing space.

We were shown similar scenes in other PGs on many news channels.

India TV told us of “PG mafia gangs” whom students have to use to find rooms. Pay them one month’s rent, pay one month’s rent in advance to the landlord and a deposit “which is never returned,” said one student to the channel.

Newspapers confirmed these reports with their own investigations: `A hub of affordable PGs that carries a hidden cost’ wrote Hindustan Times on 8 September. One student told its reporter that he paid Rs 10,000 for sharing a room. Electricity, laundry and meals are charged separately.

In another story, ‘Yet another survey ordered, but experts question past checks’, the newspaper said MCD had surveyed more than 3 million houses this year and found only 62 ‘dangerous’. Is that believable?

And so the story unfolds from news channel to news channel, newspaper to newspaper. It’s the same terrifying tale: ABP News counted 20 air conditioners in a 4-storey PG building—should there be a short circuit, the place will go up in flames, said the reporter.

Using new-age AI tools, NDTV reconstructed the sequence of events leading up to the collapse of the Satya Niketan building—and we watched it crumble before us.

AI reconstructions of incidents seem to be the latest gimmick on TV news. Just saw Times Now do an AI reconstruction of Manipur musician C Vikram Singh’s death allegedly at the hands of several young men outside his residence. Be very careful while watching TV news now to spot these.