Assam floods: National media's reportage on North East is biased, says Kiren Rijiju

New Delhi: Union minister Kiren Rijiju and Manipur chief minister N Biren Singh on Wednesday accused the national media of being “biased” towards the Northeast in reporting the massive floods and ignoring the region. Taking to Twitter, Rijiju said unlike floods in Kashmir and Chennai, the national media is “ignoring” the North East and not giving due coverage to the deluge as the region “readily does not exist in the minds of mainland”. [caption id=“attachment_3805801” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of Kiren Rijiju. PTI[/caption] “Friends, don’t cry that in this catastrophic moment national media ignores North East unlike Kashmir floods or Chennai floods. Govt cares,” he tweeted. Replying to a Twitterati, he said “Dear @KhonaHinal no deliberate ignorance but North-East readily doesn’t exist in the minds of the mainland. It requires efforts for attention”. Rijiju hails from Arunachal Pradesh. Lending support to the union minister of state for home, Manipur chief minister Singh tweeted: “Kirenji Rightly said national medias are (sic) totally biased towards the North East. They are only for mainland not for the whole India”. Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur are facing massive floods since last fortnight. At least 39 people have lost their lives in Assam, where 15 lakh people in 23 districts have been affected by the deluge. Five persons were killed and nine went missing as a massive landslide triggered by incessant rains hit eight dwellings in Arunachal Pradesh’s Papum Pare district on Tuesday. In Manipur, more than 20 percent of the total paddy fields in all five districts of Imphal valley were hit by the floods. Manipur has suffered a loss of around Rs 131 crore in the floods since cyclone Mora hit the state in late May, leading to floods and related incidents like landslides, state Principal Secretary (Relief and Disaster Management) M H Khan had said yesterday.