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Jubilee TV viewing figures down on previous royal occasions

Television viewing figures for the first day of the Queen’s jubilee were substantially down on previous royal occasions, although millions still tuned in.

A peak audience of 7.5 million people watched the BBC’s broadcast of trooping the colour on Thursday, as it kicked off a long weekend of coverage to celebrate 70 years of the Queen’s reign.

Later that evening, the BBC’s broadcast of the lighting of beacons to mark the Queen’s 70th year on the throne attracted a peak 5 million viewers, according to figures produced by rating agency BARB.

By comparison the audience for Prince Philip’s funeral last year peaked at more than 13 million people, while Prince William and Harry’s weddings hit 26 million and 18 million viewers respectively.

The relatively muted figures suggest the public took advantage of the extra bank holiday and good weather to head outside, rather than being glued to their televisions.

While trooping the colour was still the most watched programme on terrestrial television, ITV’s Coronation Street and Britain’s Got Talent were not far behind, with almost 4 million viewers each.

The BBC has sometimes struggled with the tone of its royal coverage, having come under criticism during the Queen’s diamond jubilee in 2012 for trying to use younger presenters in an attempt to attract a wider audience. Last year, the national broadcaster also received a record number of complaints from members of the public who felt it went overboard with wall-to-wall coverage of Prince Philip’s death.

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Kirsty Young returned to television to anchor the BBC’s jubilee coverage after four years off air after a diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis with secondary fibromyalgia.

The BBC’s live commentary was provided by Huw Edwards and strayed into controversy when a former officer in the Irish Guards described the soldiers as “a great mick cocktail”.

Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton said: “The micks have this fantastic mix of guards’ discipline and pursuit of excellence, with that Irish ‘irrational tenth’ if I can quote Lawrence of Arabia, which makes it the best regiment on the planet.”

Edwards interjected to say that while viewers might think the term was offensive, “it’s worth underlining that’s what you Irish Guards call yourselves”.

Joe Dwyer of Sinn Féin wrote on Twitter: “The year is 2022 … and a BBC presenter and someone from the British army are explaining why ‘micks’ actually isn’t an offensive term for Irish people.”

The relatively moderate interest in watching royals waving from carriages and soldiers in formation may also be a symptom of good weather on a bank holiday. Much of Britain was dry on Thursday, with many attending street parties and others using the long weekend to travel.

More than 20 million people watched the Queen’s coronation in 1953, overtaking radio listeners for the first time in television history.

A BBC spokesperson said: “The trooping the colour was the most watched show of the day with over 7 million viewers, and we are proud to be bringing audiences coverage of these once in a lifetime events to mark the platinum jubilee with a range of special programming on the BBC across the extended bank holiday weekend.”

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Common figures at Burari, Jantar Mantar hate events

Common figures at Burari, Jantar Mantar hate events

The Hindu Mahapanchayat organised at Burari grounds on Sunday wasn’t the first in recent times that saw many of the speakers resorting to hate speech in a large-scale public event. On August 8 last year, an event, the ‘Bharat Jodo’ (Unify India) rally was organised at Jantar Mantar where anti-Muslim slogans were raised. Nine persons were subsequently arrested on charges of promoting enmity between communities.

All nine are currently out on bail, and the police has filed a charge sheet in a Delhi court on in November 2021, according to a senior police officer. Some of them were engaging online using communally sensitive language.

Now, it has emerged that two of those involved in the August event were also associated with the Mahapanchayat held in Burari, as corroborated by the police and the literature of the event.

Those arrested in the Jantar Mantar case are: Supreme Court lawyer and former BJP Spokesperson Ashwini Upadhyay, Hindu Army chief Sushil Kumar Tiwari, Hindu Raksha Dal chief Pinky Chaudhary and members Uttam Malik alias Uttam Upadhyay and Deepak Kumar, Save India Foundation chief Preet Singh, Hindu Force member Deepak Singh, Sudarshan Vahini member Vinod Sharma and Mahakal Youth Brigade’s Vinit Kranti.

The officers investigating the Burari event have identified Preet Singh, member of the Save India Foundation’s (SIF’s), as one of the organisers of the event. Pinki Chaudhary of the Hindu Raksha Dal has been named as a promoter of the event in various posters of the Mahapanchayat.

Preet Singh shared the poster of the event on Save India Foundation’s Twitter account as far back as January 2. In a video invite shared on social media, the text said, “Bharat Bachao Andolan Ke Sangharsh Main Sahyog Karein (Help in the Save India Movement)”. In the video, a male voice can be heard demanding five laws during the “movement” including ‘Religious conversion control law’ and ‘Intruders Control Law’.

Among several communally sensitive posts on Singh’s and SIF’s many social media platforms, one was a screenshot of a Hindi news report titled ‘Muslim-Christian population increases in 9 out of 6 states’ along with a text shared by SIF’s account which urged people to come out of their houses on April 3 and raise their voice.

Chaudhary, another Jantar Mantar accused who is out on bail, mentioned the April 3 event on his social media many times over the last few months.

The August 9 rally was called by Ashwini Upadhyay to allegedly demand the end of ‘colonial-era laws’. Several videos of the event went viral, including one showing a group, led by a man wearing a saffron T-shirt, raising anti-Muslim inflammatory slogans. He was later identified as Uttam Malik.

Upadhyay had then refuted the allegations and said, “We started our event at 11am and left after concluding it at noon, because the crowd had started swelling up. No inflammatory slogans were raised during our event. If the video is genuine, I believe that the sloganeering may have happened either before our event or afterwards. I learnt about the video around 8pm on Sunday, when it was circulated on social media and some people started tagging me with intent to defame me. I don’t know the people sloganeering in the video, have never met them, nor they were called for the event,” said Upadhyay said at that time.

Back then, Delhi Police lodged a case under IPC sections 153A (promoting enmity between different groups), 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant) and 51 for violation of DDMA Act pertaining to violation of Covid-19 guidelines.