Nothing is safe these days at the hands of the supersensitive—not even a simple headline.
The Times of India ran an innocuous page one anchor on Thursday of footballs for Gujarat chief minister Narendra Damodardas Modi‘s “Vivekananda yuva vikas yatra” being made in Jalandhar.
On Friday, the newspaper had to run this by way of an apology.
Image: courtesy The Times of India
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Also read: The newspaper cartoon that offended Christians
Poonam Pandey, Sachin Tendulkar & The Telegraph
Newspaper cartoon that’s offending Israelis
“sans serif” joins ToI in this sincere apology
Newspaper cartoon that’s offending Aussies
ToI apology that meets Katju‘s standards
IJR 
“Deccan Chronicle” of Hyderabad announced A. R. Rehaman’s winning an Oscar with this headline: “Rehaman top dog”. As soon as the paper hit the stands someone called up the paper to say that it was an insult to one of the prophet’s acolytes. The paper pressed the panic button and announced an apology immediately. By 8 AM local television channels began scrolling the apology. The next day the paper apologized on the front page prominently displaying it in a box. The episode occurred in the last week of February that year.
On March 8, the same paper, published a painting, entitled “Sakthi” specially drawn by – who else but India’s most cantankerous “secular” artist – M. F. Hussain. The paper commissioned the painting to celebrate the International Women’s day. True to character Hussain desecrated another Hindu goddess (Durga, this time) and painted a jeans and T shirt clad Maa Durga standing astride a tiger. The last bit was to obviate any doubt anybody might have had about the woman in the picture. Hussain wanted to remove all possibility of someone explaining away that the woman in the painting was actually that of an IT professional by name Sakthi. For Hussain never baulked at insulting the sensitivities of the Hindus. When Hindus clamoured for an apology the paper did tender it eight days later but tucked it in an inside page, and not prominently displayed it on the front page as it did on the previous occasion.
Time has come a full circle. One wonders why the secular brigade, which fully backed Hussain’s persistent demeanour, is silent – deafeningly so – when the American ambassador to Libya was lynched by a frenzied mob, again in the context of a work of art.
May be because secularism in India is bankrolled by rich Arab patrons.
You don’t understand! It’s a congress-islam-christian-secularism conspiracy …