https://soundcloud.com/user-311470525/j-pod-coomi-kapoor-author-of *** An acclaimed Indian Express journalist, whose husband was jailed during the Emergency of 1975, says governments no longer need to take Indira Gandhi’s route of introducing censorship to control the media or the message that reaches the people. “Parties have found enough ways to control the media without having to formally declare censorship.…
Tag Archives: Kuldip Nayar
‘Has media blacked out RIL takeover of TV18?’
As India’s biggest business house Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) goes through the motions of formally taking complete control of one of India’s biggest TV networks, Network 18, the veteran journalist and commentator Kuldip Nayar writes in Deccan Herald: “I was not surprised when television channels did not cover the taking over of a large TV…
When a fine magazine shuts down, it is news
After 15 years of publication, Housecalls, the first-class bimonthly magazine published by the Hyderabad-based Dr Reddy‘s Laboratories, is shutting shop this year. In her editorial in the penultimate January-February issue, its editor pens a touching lament for the printed word—and the sanity that comes with it. *** By RATNA RAO SHEKAR Increasingly these days, we…
Why the SC tried to frame media guidelines
What was behind the Supreme Court of India’s urge and urgency to frame guidelines for media coverage? The thinly veiled insinuations on the Chief Justice made by public interest litigants and dutifully carried by the media? The veteran journalist, columnist and author Kuldip Nayar givesa couple of conspiracy theories some oxygen, in The Tribune, Chandigarh:…
Hindu’s longest serving editor G. Kasturi: RIP
sans serif records the demise of Gopalan Kasturi aka G. Kasturi, the longest-serving editor of The Hindu in Madras, early today. He was 87. Although he was the helmsman of a supposedly “orthodox, conservative” newspaper, Kasturi was renowned in the industry as a torchbearer, showing the way with his knowledge of fonts, photography and printing…
Why N.J. Nanporia bought a carved table
sans serif records with regret the demise of N.J. Nanporia, the half-Parsi, half-Japanese former editor of The Times of India and The Statesman in Poona. He was 88 years old. Sunanda K. Datta-Ray pays a warm tribute in Business Standard: “No other Indian I have known in 54 years in journalism has been so reluctant…
‘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…
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…
The editor who said ‘no’ to Ramnath Goenka
The veteran journalist Kuldip Nayar pays tribute to V.K. Narasimhan, the legendary editor of the Indian Express during the Emergency in 1975, in a column in Deccan Herald: “The day Indira Gandhi was defeated at the polls Narasimhan was ousted to bring in S. Mulgaonkar. Ramnath Goenka explained that this was his obligation because Mulgaonkar…
Why Khushwant Singh fell out with Arun Shourie
Khushwant Singh, former editor of Hindustan Times and the now-defunct Illustrated Weekly of India, on why he is no longer friends with Arun Shourie, the Magsaysay Award-winning former editor of Indian Express, in the Hindustan Times: “There was a time when I was a frequent diner in the Shouries’ household in Delhi…. At one of the…
‘Indira exploited Western media outrage in ’75’
William Rees-Mogg, the former editor of The Times, London, on the Emergency of 1975 and media censorship, in his book, Memoirs, to be published by Harper Collins on July 7: “We attacked in a Times leader Mrs Indira Gandhi‘s suspension of Indian democracy. I only saw Mrs Gandhi once. She was insufferably arrogant, and very…
‘The poor in rural India need BBC Hindi service’
Eighteen leading intellectuals, including the BBC’s iconic voice from India, Sir Mark Tully, have written a letter to the editor of The Guardian, pleading for the continuation of broadcast of the BBC’s Hindi service. “We are astonished at the news that the BBC management has decided to stop transmission of BBC Hindi radio on short…
‘Credibility is like virginity and it has been lost’
The veteran journalist, columnist and author Kuldip Nayar in The Sunday Guardian: “Credibility is like virginity. It exists or it does not. Unfortunately, some top names in Indian journalism have lost their credibility…. They behaved like power brokers and crossed the Lakshman rekha between legitimate news gathering and lobbying. It is like the fence eating…
And thus spake the Editor-in-Chief of ‘Harijan’
The veteran editor, columnist, author and activist, Kuldip Nayar, recounting a seminar held recently in Thiruvananthapuram by the Malayalam daily Mathrubhumi, in The Sunday Guardian: “Mahatma Gandhi‘s is an example which every journalist must emulate. He tells us journalists that the sole aim of journalism should be service. “In his autobiography, he says: ‘The newspaper…
A blank editorial, a black editorial & a footnote
When Indira Gandhi introduced media censorship as part of the Emergency in 1975, Indian newspapers ran blank editorials as a form of protest. The Kannada newspaper Vijaya Karnataka, belonging to The Times of India group, runs a blank (and black) editorial today, in protest against what happened in the State legislative assembly on Monday, during…
‘Hindu and HT were worst offenders in 1975’
With nearly 60% of India reputedly being under 25 years of age—in other words, with three out of five Indians having been born after 1985—it stands to reason that the 35th anniversary of the declaration of Emergency by the Indira Gandhi government should have come and gone without creating a ripple. That, and the fact…
The K-word, the P-word, the G-word, the A-word
The ghosts of Jammu & Kashmir seem to repeatedly haunt the BJP Rajya Sabha member and editor-in-chief of The Pioneer, the very erudite Chandan Mitra. Over a decade ago, the journalist-activist Kuldip Nayar, then a member of the upper house, moved a privilege motion for an overly enthusiastic editorial that questioned Nayar’s patriotism. In February…
‘N. Ram is stalling Malini Parthasarathy’s ascent’
The veteran journalist, author, civil rights activist, and former Indian high commissioner to London, Kuldip Nayar, weighs in on the tussle within the boardroom of The Hindu, in the latest issue of M.J. Akbar‘s weekly newspaper, The Sunday Guardian: “I wonder why N. Ram, 65, is so reluctant to retire. People may have differed with…
Arun Shourie: ‘Intolerant. Abusive. Dictatorial.’
Shoma Chaudhury, the executive editor of Tehelka, does a much-required re-examination of Arun Shourie, the former editor of the Indian Express, who occupies an “adumbral position between liberal knight, self-righteous crusader and unselfconscious fascist”, in the context of a recent interview with his protege, Shekhar Gupta. “Shourie joined the Indian Express as executive editor in…
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