366: Confronting or Heckling: How Did Kamra-Arnab Row Blow Up?

Published: Jan. 29, 2020, 2:05 p.m.

While Delhi is holding full fledged campaigns for the upcoming elections and newsrooms are bracing for Budget 2020, a rather peculiar incident is making the headlines and stirring up a lot of conversation on social media.

Comedian Kunal Kamra posted a video on Twitter where he’s seen doing what some are calling “heckling” and others are calling “confronting” Republic TV journalist Arnab Goswami about his journalism.

The video was shot in an IndiGo airlines flight which banned him for six months, only hours after the incident. But what happened after is a chain reaction.

First the state-owned Air India banned him, followed by SpiceJet and then GoAir.

This happened after a prompting from Hardeep Singh Puri, the Minister for Civil Aviation. Commenting on the incident he had tweeted, “Offensive behaviour designed to provoke & create disturbance inside an aircraft is absolutely unacceptable & endangers safety of air travellers. We are left with no option but to advise other airlines to impose similar restrictions on the person concerned.”

Should Kamra have approached Goswami in a flight? Should IndiGo have banned Kamra for this? We spoke to journalists and comedians and the jury is divided. Tune in to the podcast for more!

Producer and Host: Shorbori Purkayastha
Guests: Faye D'Souza, Former Anchor, Mirror Now
Abhinandan Sekhri, Co-Founder of Newslaundry
Anirban Dasgupta, Comedian
Atul Khatri, Comedian
Editor: Shelly Walia

Music: Big Bang Fuzz

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