Prime Minister Narendra Modi finally gave a television interview to an Indian channel. But could he have said more?

Thanks to the mellowed Arnab Goswami, who clearly was not wearing the same hat as when he was speaking frankly with Rahul Gandhi, this was not an interview that gave a great headline. It was more of a space filler and maybe Goswami knew it and that is why such a big interview was pushed first for the 6pm slot and not the Times Now super prime time when half, or more, of India pawn their eyeballs to their most popular channel.

There was a bit of friendly banter here and there, like when the two discussed how Modi approached the US Congress, but there was none of the chest thumping let-me-tell-you-what-I-want-to-hear line of questioning from Indias top news anchor

But then this is the PM and you cant speak to him as if he was some long-retired Pakistani General sitting a safe 500 miles away in Islamabad.
Often, the PM gave the impression that he wanted to speak more and could have opened up more had he been probed more. But then that was not to be.

There was hardly any body language on show either. Hands are often a good indicator of the how the interview is going and if some questions are being stress points. The gilded frame model of Time Nows screen format made sure that all we saw of the PM was his face, his hands tucked away behind bands of text.

Surely editors across India will now be struggling to figure out which point to highlight in the headline. They had one good hook though, when the PM spoke about how the fondness for publicity is never going to do any good to the nation in an obvious reference to party MP Subramanian Swamy.

But then India wants to hear much beyond Swamy and that was not on offer. But then that is not the PMs fault. His answers can only be as good as the questions. And the man with all the questions, as well as the answers, sadly failed the nation today.