News Broadcasting
Five Indians leaders feature in BBC’s list for the greatest South Asian leader
MUMBAI: BBC South Asia’s focused news site (www.bbcnews.com/southasia) has announced an online poll for the most important leader in South Asia in modern times. Out of the 16 leaders, five are Indians. The online poll was launched on 20 December and gives the readers a chance to have their say.
Arjun Rana from Delhi says, “Subhash Chandra Bose has to be the greatest since he galvanised millions into fighting colonial rule.” Faiz Hakim from New York, USA feels, “Jinnah was a great leader but with a narrow vision of what was rightfully the heritage of Muslims in the sub-continent.” Nooman Naqvi from Chicago, on the other hand opines, “General Pervez Musharraf is the greatest leader of South Asia. He has turned Pakistan’s economy around, eliminated corruption, gave equal voting rights to religious minorities and had the guts to take on the fundamentalists.”
The result of the poll will be announced in early 2005.
The list of leaders is as follows: Ahmed Shah Masood (Afghanistan), Atal Bihari Vajpayee (India), JR Jayawardene (Sri Lanka), BP Koirala (Nepal), Chandrika Kumaratunga (Sri Lanka), Indira Gandhi (India), Jawahar Lal Nehru (India), Mahatma Gandhi (India), Muhammad Ali Jinnah (Pakistan), Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (Bangladesh), Sirimavo Bandaranaike (Sri Lanka), Subhash Chandra Bose (India), Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (Pakistan), Ziaur Rahman (Bangladesh), Zahir Shah (Afghanistan) and Zia ul Haq (Pakistan).
News Broadcasting
News TV viewership jumps 33 per cent as West Asia war draws audiences
BARC Week 8 data shows news share rising to 8 per cent despite T20 World Cup
NEW DELHI:Â Even as individual television news channel ratings remain under a temporary pause, the genre itself is seeing a clear surge in audience attention.
According to the latest data from Broadcast Audience Research Council India, television news recorded a 33 per cent jump in genre share in Week 8 of 2026, covering February 28 to March 6.
The news genre accounted for 8 per cent of total television viewership during the week, up from 6 per cent the previous week. The spike in attention coincided with escalating geopolitical tensions involving the United States, Israel and Iran, which have kept global headlines firmly fixed on West Asia.
The rise is notable because it came at a time when cricket was dominating television screens. The high-stakes stages of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, including the Super 8 fixtures and semi-finals, were being broadcast during the same period.
Despite the cricket frenzy, viewers appeared to be toggling between sport and global affairs, boosting the overall share of news programming.
The surge in genre share comes even as the government has enforced a one-month pause on publishing ratings for individual news channels. The move followed regulatory scrutiny of the television ratings ecosystem.
While channel-level rankings remain temporarily out of sight, the genre-level data suggests that when global tensions escalate, audiences continue to turn to television news for real-time updates.
