Media left in lurch in IPL opening ceremony

Kolkata: The dazzling IPL 2013 opening ceremony might have enthralled the Kolkata crowd today, but inadequate media facilities stumped hordes of scribes gathered from across the country.

With no separate media facilities at the grand venue with a seating capacity of 120,000, the journalists were seated among the crowd and basic devices like laptop were not allowed to carry with them. As the ceremony began, the excited crowd stood up on their respective chairs to have a better view of the proceedings and the scribes had no choice left but to follow suit. The scribes also faced difficulties in accessing telecommunication networks with jammers put in place. This added to the woes faced by journalists, who were already bearing the brunt of a disorganised programme. "This is so disappointing ... I am getting erratic phone signals due to the jammers. I am texting my story to my office an they are doing the needful," a miffed Mumbai journalist said. The Salt Lake Stadium does have a spacious media box but that was being used for some other purposes by the Shah Rukh co-owned Red Chillie Entertainment Limited, the opening ceremony organisers. "The media box facility is unavailable as that has been taken over by RCE and the big stage has been erected in front of it. Mediapersons are requested not to carry laptops and manage on their own," read a statement from local association Cricket Association of Bengal. This was unlike opening ceremonies in the past editions when basic facilities like wifi and telephone network were available. PTI