A newspaper ad without SRK, MSD or AB

4 March 2013

Brand ambassadors for media companies usually tend to be celebrities—a Shah Rukh Khan for Zee, a Mahinder Singh Dhoni for NDTV, an Amitabh Bachchan for The Times of India, etc—or faces of newsmakers. In other words, usually upper class or upper caste. Loksatta, the Marathi daily from the Indian Express group, bucks the trend with…

Not the land of the cow, the land of holy cows

5 June 2008

The “sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic republic” of India is fast becoming, if it has not already become, the “notionally sovereign, chauvinistic, parochial, intolerant republic”. Especially from a media point of view. On Sunday, political psychologist Ashis Nandy came under attack from the BJP government of Gujarat for an “opinion” piece blaming the middle class for…

Should Hitler have been asked to explain?

25 February 2008

The media has been a key player in Raj Thackeray‘s hate campaign against “outsiders” in Bombay. In giving him the oxygen of publicity, in editorialising news, in fanning the flames by repeatedly showing file pictures, in not dealing with the issue with balance and proportion, the media has come under scrutiny from the Union cabinet,…