Good morning, it’s time to go back to bed?

8 November 2011

Just because 96-year-old Khushwant Singh called it the “most readable daily in the world” recently, it doesn’t mean the matter is closed and beyond debate. Far from it. The Times of India thankfully thinks just the opposite of Singh “insofaras The Hindu is concerned” in this new TV commercial for ToI‘s three-year-old Madras edition. With the punchline “Stuck…

How an Oscar winner ushered in a newspaper

23 February 2009

Last year, when The Times of India made its big move to Madras to take on The Hindu, it used music composer A.R. Rahman, who won two Academy Awards today for the best original song and best score for the movie Slumdog Millionaire, as its vehicle of change with this slick television commercial. Also read:…

Chari, a Hindu lens legend, passes away. RIP.

4 October 2008

sans serif records the passing away of K. Narayanachari, the dark room assistant who rose to be the chief photographer of The Hindu in Madras. He was 85 years old. An obituary in the paper notes: Acknowledged as one of India’s finest and most productive press photographers, Chari believed that imagination, innovation, and total dedication…

Any number will do when the game is of numbers

5 September 2008

How does an English newspaper—a new entrant in a colourful, chaotic, “conservative”, cinema-mad, cutout-filled City—connect to the masses? If you are The Hindu, you establish synergies with the prim and proper Madras Music Academy, and collaborate with some of its classical katcheris to the soft rustle of Kanjeevarams. If you are The Times of India,…