The following is the full text of the speech delivered by the President of India, Pranab Mukherjee, at the inauguration of the platinum jubilee celebrations of the Indian Newspaper Society (INS) in New Delhi on Thursday, 27 February 2014: *** By PRANAB MUKHERJEE “Seventy-five years ago, the world was a very different place. Our country…
Monthly Archives: February 2014
Are journalists already poised to ride Modi wave?
As the 2014 general election campaign gathers steam, the masks are beginning to come off, as journalists who make no pretence of their political and ideological inclinations (without disclosing it publicly) walk over to the other side, just as they did in previous elections. Ashutosh of IBN-7 is officially the Aam Aadmi Party’s candidate from…
On TV, Congress loses to BJP, Left loses to AAP
The point has been made before, that the current political coverage, especially on television, is more than somewhat skewed, tilting unabashedly towards Narendra Damodardas Modi of the BJP vis-a-vis Rahul Gandhi of the Congress. Now, the CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechuri explicates it a bit more in the Hindustan Times, comparing the TV coverage of Arvind…
Amartya Sen on leaks, plants and Indian Express
It ain’t over till the economist sings. First, there was a report in The Indian Express on 18 February, headlined “Amartya Sen threatens to quit Nalanda University over funds’ queries.” “At its crux is a massive Rs 2,727 crore financial package to the University over a period of 12 years. The finance ministry’s department of…
When B.G. Verghese is drawn into row, it’s news
Nobody is safe in the treacherous minefield that is Jammu & Kashmir. Not even B.G. Verghese. The Magsaysay Award-winning editor of the Hindustan Times, who was sacked from the Birla-owned paper when he stated that Indira Gandhi‘s annexation of Sikkim was “less than proper” —and a welcome voice of sobriety in a mediascape populated by…
How new rape law caught up with Tarun J. Tejpal
Tehelka founder-editor Tarun J. Tejpal has been in jail for over 80 days now on the charge of “raping” a junior colleague during an event organised by the magazine at a Goa resort. The Goa police have charged him on seven counts under the new rape law that came into effect after the Delhi gangrape…
When journo dedicates book to journo, it’s news
Tens of Indian journalists are writing books these days and there are all manner of dedications. But Manoj Mitta‘s The Fiction of Fact-finding: Modi and Godhra stands out from the crowd for who it remembers. The Times of India‘s senior editor, who co-authored a seminal book on the 1984 pogrom in Delhi, dedicates his latest…
A Kannada paper breaks RG’s code of silence
Even before he sat down last month with Kalpesh Yagnik of Dainik Bhaskar and Arnab Goswami of Times Now for one-on-one interviews, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi had met Editors in Delhi off and on, more off than on. These meetings were long, relaxed, informal but strictly off the record. Smart phones and cameras had to…
Jessica Lal, Tehelka, Bina Ramani & the media
It was in South Delhi socialite Bina Ramani‘s Tamarind Court restaurant that Jessica Lall, a “model who worked as a celebrity barmaid”, was shot dead in 1999 by Manu Sharma, the son of Congress politician Venod Sharma. Initially exonerated of the charges, the case turned full turtle for Sharma following a sting operation by Harinder…
BJP man’s suicide threat “live and in full colour”
Long years ago, a TV studio participant in the United States pulled out a revolver and shot himself—“live and in full colour”, as a prominent American magazine headlined it. Something similar has (nearly) occurred several continents away in Mysore. S.A. Ramadas—a pracharak of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and a former medical education minister in…
Mani Shankar Aiyar launches into Arnab Goswami
After a fiasco of an interview with Times Now editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami, Mail Today reports that Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi will now go through “mock interview sessions” before further TV powwows to prevent further fiascos. “The duration of future interviews will be around 30 to 45 minutes instead of 90 minutes as on Times Now.…
Nude picture that landed Sports World in trouble
The cover image of the now-defunct Sports World magazine, from the Ananda Bazaar Patrika group, which landed the Calcutta-based media house in a protracted 21-year legal case that ended this week. The image of tennis star Boris Becker covering the breasts of his then fiancee Barbara Feltus with his hands, had been reproduced from the…
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