From The Buzz, the gossip column of the Hindustan Times: “Living life below the radar can be an onerous task particularly for the spouses of Indian Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW) spies. To give expression to husbands, wives and children of India’s cloak and dagger operators, R&AW launched its first in-house magazine (aptly named Anamika)…
Monthly Archives: July 2012
Hussain Zaidi: ‘Unlikely mafia killed J. Dey’
He is a crime reporter of note, having authored two best-selling books (Black Friday and Dongri to Dubai), one of which became a hit film, another is in the making. He has seen his protege Mid-Day crime journalist J. Dey murdered. He has seen his own colleague, Jigna Vora, being picked up for Dey’s murder,…
Remember, for one day you will be gone too
With bottomline-conscious bean counters and brand managers stomping all over newsrooms these days, rare is the media house that pauses to salute those who are no longer with us. To its credit, the Indian Express bucks the trend. On its pages today is an ad for Vijay Pratap Singh, its reporter who was among those…
Financial Times takes on The Times of India
The Times of India group’s two-decade long fight with the Financial Times over the use of the FT trademark in India has taken a fresh twist with the Times group announcing the launch of a new edition of a “supplement” titled Financial Times in the Delhi national capital region (NCR). Launched in the early 1990s…
‘Corporate sector has a strong say on media’
First, he commented on the “abnormally affluent” Shekhar Gupta in his memoirs Beyond the Lines and then he apologised to the Indian Express editor-in-chief at the book’s launch. In between, Kuldip Nayar also appeared at Idea Exchange, the Express‘ in-house interaction programme, taking questions from the paper’s journalists. Maneesh Chhibber, assistant editor: What do you…
National Awards for Excellence in Journalism
The press council of India (PCI) headed by Justice Markandey Katju, who has spent the best part of his tenure tutoring the media on upping its quality, invites entries for national awards for excellence in journalism, through a DAVP advertisement laden with typographical mistakes and syntactical errors.
Sreenath Sreenivasan named Columbia CDO
Sreenath Sreenivasan, the Tokyo-born son of former Indian diplomat T.P. Sreenivasan, who freelanced for India Today, Business Today and The Sunday Observer before joining Columbia University on its staff, has been appointed its chief digital officer. Link via Vishwatma Bhat Also read: Do journalism schools produce better journos?
Time, Sandesh and the six degrees of separation
As the row over Time magazine’s “Underachiever” cover line on prime minister Manmohan Singh engulfs primetime news, Mail Today cartoonist R. Prasad cuts through the post-colonial clutter. New York Times‘ India website IndiaInk has a gallery of past magazine covers on India, while Rediff compiles a slideshow of previous Time covers on Indians. Meanwhile, Prasad…
The curious case of David Davidar & Vikram Seth
David Davidar, the Gentleman magazine journalist who became the face of Indian book publishing, is back in the news with a writer, Sivasundari Bose, alleging that Davidar plagiarised from her work, The Golden Stag, for his debut novel, The House of Blue Mangoes. Bose claims similarities between the locale (south eastern tip of India), the…
PM’s ex-media advisor robbed again and again
The postman always rings twice? Harish Khare, the former Hindu chief of bureau in Delhi who became prime minister Manmohan Singh‘s media advisor, has been robbed. Again. Image: courtesy The Times of India Also read: How well is Harish Khare advising the prime minister? Because when dog bites dog, it’s news—I Because when dog bites…
ET: a story and a clarification in age of PC
So, how seriously does the Union home minister P. Chidambaram take what the (English) media writes about him? Very seriously, it seems. A clarification appearing in The Economic Times provides some evidence: “A story on the recent Chhattisgarh encounter, ‘No probe into encounter: home secy’ (ET, July 3), said: ‘Last week home minister P. Chidambaram…
Kuldip Nayar on Shekhar Gupta, N. Ram & Co
Kuldip Nayar, 89, the grand old lion of Indian journalism—former editor of the Statesman in Delhi, former managing editor of the United News of India news agency, former correspondent of the London Times, former media advisor to the late prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, former high commissioner of India to the United Kingdom, and above…
And so, India’s three best cartoonists are…
It isn’t often that Indian cartoonists talk about their craft—or their colleagues and compatriots. There is, for instance, a famous incident of the doyen of Indian cartooning, R.K. Laxman, being asked in the course of an interview with The Illustrated Weekly of India, about a younger cartoonist then working for the Indian Express. “Ravi Shankar?…
Another (woman) journalist bites the stardust*
Is it just our eyes—or are more women journalists catching the fancy of bold-faced names with a far higher hit-rate than their bearded, bespectacled counterparts? Prarthna Gahilote, a senior special correspondent with Outlook* magazine (and formerly with CNN-IBN), has tied the knot with the Bollywood singer Mohit Chauhan. Images: courtesy Hindustan Times, Mail Today *…
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