While watching the News Channels today evening on television during a discussion on gender issues, it struck me that why the News Channels don't have any dark-skinned News Anchors. May be when the News Channels say that they want to be "fair" and "objective", they make it a point to prove by hiring only fair-skinned News Anchors, especially the female newsreaders. So according to our "objective" and "impartial" News Channels, the content of a news byte will have less viewership if it is presented by a dark-skinned female anchor vis-a-vis a fair-skinned female anchor.
It is already bemusing that in a country of essentially brown-skinned and dark-skinned people, our Bollywood has no successful dark-skinned actress in the past decade or so. Earlier, the dark-skinned male actors somehow escaped this filtering, but it seems many of them have been using "fairness creams for men" quite effectively. Moving from Bollywood to even our Hindi Entertainment Channels, (where there is a scope for hundreds of actresses for different television serials), one rarely gets to see a dark-skinned actress. If at all by chance one gets to see a dark-skinned lady, then she would be the one who is being discriminated in the family, or is not finding a suitable match for marriage and blah blah!
While the advertisements for selling products have shamelessly (and successfully) shown that a fair-skinned girl has much more chance of being successful in society (even for being a playback singer), our television channels have simply echoed the sentiments.
Amidst watching all the debates on gender issues and discussion on gender sensitization, the conditioning of masses to have a liking for "fair skin" somehow doesn't raise any eyebrows. Or like the PR & Advertisement Firms innocuously say, "If people want to become fair-skinned, then it's their choice, we are not forcing them to do so.". No wonder the Fairness Cream Market in India is worth merely Rs 1500 Crores in India, with Men's segment having a share of Rs 500 Crores (so much for gender parity) (http://articles.timesofindia.
Or may be it's the Capitalism's way of enabling a level-playing field for everyone. If you are dark-skinned and not being successful in life, please feel free to choose among the dozens of fairness creams which will make you fair in XYZ days.
