NDTV India Ravish Kumar has a fan base all his own in modern Hindi journalism, despite the negligible viewership of his channel, primarily because heartland journalists have been en masse neutered and turned into evangelists for Hindutva’s crudest causes by their twisted owners, managers and minds. Kumar’s earthy, blunt, no-nonsense Bihari drone can be gnawing…
Tag Archives: George Orwell
A “licence” for journalists is not a ‘sine qua non’
Information and broadcasting minister Manish Tewari‘s proposal for a “common examination” for journalism students, with a “licence” to practice journalism at the end, gets the full treatment (a pocket cartoon and an editorial) from the Indian Express: “There are enough closed societies where Tewari’s suggestion would appear commonplace, where governments are unconcerned by the dilemmas…
An Editor is never too old to learn a new trick
After 42 years of handwriting his columns, articles and books on scribblepads—at Debonair,The Sunday Observer, The Indian Post, The Independent, The Pioneer and Outlook*—and after hiding the vicious mouse behind his PC all his life, Outlook* editorial chairman Vinod Mehta writes his latest Diary on his new laptop, in New Delhi on Tuesday. “I found…
The best editor The Pioneer, Delhi, never had?
The writer Rudyard Kipling was once on its rolls; the former British prime minister Winston Churchill served as its war correspondent. Now, The Pioneer, New Delhi, has announced its best editor who wasn’t: Eric Arthur Blair In a front-page story, the right-wing paper reports that the left-wing novelist and political thinker (born in Motihari, Bihar)…
William Safire’s 18 steps to better writing
It’s not known if William Safire, who wrote the “On Language” column in the New York Times Magazine for 30 years till earlier this month, was conversant with the ways of social media, but it is safe to presume that he would have been horrified at how his demise last night was coveyed to readers…
“Indecent? Vulgar? Repulsive? Suggestive?”
The Shirdi Sai Baba may miraculously open his left eye and left eye only, mind you, just as the Neilsen meters start whirring. The mullahs may spew out hate 24×7 with spit and polish. The 9 pm women may all be vampish shrews with Botox vials in their hip pockets. And aging heroes may fish…
Is all fair dinkum in love, war and football?
Serious sport, George Orwell famously wrote in 1945, has nothing to do with fair play. “It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting” where “the most savage combative instincts are aroused”. The Polish tabloid Super Express…
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