NEW DELHI: Walt Disney Company-owned streaming platform, Hotstar, has sparked controversy by censoring a recent show by John Oliver critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Citizenship Amendment Act.
Although the video is available on YouTube channel, Hotstar, which currently offers over 1,00,000 hours of TV content and movies across 9 languages, chose not to stream the show on its website. An email to the company seeking a response on the issue remained unanswered.
Emmy award winner John Oliver termed the combination of NPR and Citizenship Act “diabolical”. Oliver talked about Modi’s journey from being denied an American visa after the Gujarat riots in 2002 to becoming the Prime Minister and then hosting American President Donald Trump in Gujarat.
Oliver also highlighted the widespread protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 and took a dig at the US President Donald Trump calling Modi “the father of India”, given that this title is used for Mahatma Gandhi.
This isn’t the first instance of censorship on Hotstar. In November 2019, it had cut out parts of one of the episodes of the same show as it made jokes on Disney, which is also the parent company of Hotstar. IANS
