Kishore Bhimani, the voice that relayed to the world that a Test had been tied in Madras, with the scores level of both the teams with all wickets down, only for the second time in cricket history, has passed on—just 22 days after the demise of the Australian star of that match, Dean Jones. “It’s…
Tag Archives: Mid Day
“India has ceded territory to China”: near-unanimous newspaper editorials call the Modi government’s bluff—and reaffirm the value of print journalism
Editorials in India’s major English newspapers on the “mutual disengagement” that India and China have agreed upon, are nearly unanimous in their verdict: under “strong man” Narendra Modi, India has surrendered its territory to China. The mature and considered reading of the newspapers is in marked contrast to TV news channels parroting the BJP-led NDA…
The news of a declaration: Hindi magazine ‘Cricket Samrat’ has published its final issue
COVID has impacted the media in a myriad ways, and magazines, especially niche magazines, are collapsing under its weight. Mid-Day reports the closure of the pioneering Hindi cricket magazine Cricket Samrat after 42 years of publication. Sportstar, the weekly from The Hindu group, has already gone online. *** In the Indian Express, the paper’s sports…
An artist and an interviewer: former ‘Mid-Day’ and ‘Sportsweek’ art director Ataullah Khan falls to COVID
From Jeddah, the news of the death due to COVID, of Ataullah Khan, the well-regarded former art director of the Bombay tabloid, Mid-Day, and its sister magazine, Sportsweek. He also did interviews with movie stars for the group’s Urdu daily Inquilaab. Mr Khan’s brother Masiulla Khan was the art head of The Sunday Observer, both…
Everybody loves Rashid Irani: When a fine movie critic—a restaurant owner who doesn’t own a stove or a fridge, and can’t cook—gets stuck at home
How did a Bombay film critic who lives alone, without a cooking range, TV or fridge, and who has eaten all his meals outside for 35 years, live through the 75-day lockdown? Rashid Irani, long time movie reviewer for The Times of India and then Hindustan Times, recounts his saga in Sunday Mid-Day. “Though I…
In the good old days, when journalism was still fun, before the nerds and “grads” arrived and sucked the oxygen out of the newsroom…
Khushwant Singh said he cooked up the weekly astrological predictions for The Illustrated Weekly of India for a couple of weeks when the designated crystalball gazer was rendered hors de combat. The claim was difficult to ascertain given the general record of its source. In the Bombay tabloid Mid-Day, its former staffer Mark Manuel recounts…
When a teenage prodigy with 34,347 international runs grinds his way to a slow and steady 25, it is news to celebrate
In the Bombay tabloid Mid-Day, its group sports editor Clayton Murzello marks the silver jubilee of batting legend Sachin Tendulkar‘s wedding, 25 years ago today. Clayton writes that he gifted the couple a marble Ganesh idol, and recounts Behram “Busybee” Contractor making mental notes for his Round & About column in the Afternoon Despatch &…
Soon streaming on a screen near you: Anushka Sharma-backed Amazon Prime show, based “on a line” from ex-Tehelka editor Tarun Tejpal’s true story of his assassins
Say what you will, Anushka Sharma is a woman of her word. In March 2019, the actor backed a web series based on disgraced Tehelka editor Tarun J. Tejpal’s book The Story of my Assassins despite the cloud of sexual harassment charges hovering over him. The Bombay tabloid Mid-Day reports today that the project is…
The 5 stereotypes of journalists in Bollywood
Much as the role of the hero and the heroine has morphed in the Hindi film industry, so has the depiction of the villain and the vamp—and, of course, the journalist. From a pure print person till well into the late 1980s, the journalist on film is now largely a TV person. From a poorly…
Dicky Rutnagur, an ekdum first-class dikra: RIP
SHARANYA KANVILKAR writes from Bombay: After three days of parsimonious one-paragraph obituaries, the tributes have started coming in for Dicky Rutnagar, the Bombay-born cricket and squash correspondent of The Daily Telegraph, London, who passed away on Friday, 20 June 2013, at the age of 82. Rutnagur, who covered 300 Test matches before he retired in…
2,450 journos lost jobs in Chitty Chitty Bong Bong
Mail Today, the tabloid daily owned by the India Today group, reports that an astonishing 2,450 journalists (including non-editorial staff) may have lost their jobs after the meltdown of Bengal’s chitfund driven, politically backed newspapers and TV stations. Employees of Saradha group owned 24-hour TV news station, Channel 10, are reported to have filed a…
The many faces of Aakar Patel (as per Google)
Google now has a search facility by which you can look up images of people by putting in an image in the search window. This is what turns up when you look for Aakar Patel, at various times the executive editor of Mid-Day, columnist for Mint Lounge, Hindustan Times, Express Tribune, First Post and Open,…
Sachin Tendulkar, Mid-Day & the Indian Express
Thankfully, Sachin Tendulkar‘s below-par performance on the Australian tour has dimmed the spotlight somewhat on the Indian media batting for a Bharat Ratna for the cricketer in quest for his 100th hundred. In Lounge, the Saturday section of the business daily Mint, columnist Aakar Patel argues why, among other reasons, Sachin shouldn’t get the nation’s…
Will underworld dons trust such a hot reporter?
Mail Today, the tabloid newspaper from the India Today group, has a report today that Gul Panag, the former Miss India Universe, has been signed up by the maverick film maker Ram Gopal Varma to play a crime reporter in an upcoming film. The buzz in film circles is that Gul Panag may play the…
Mid-Day Delhi and Mid-Day Bangalore to shut
The Bombay tabloid Mid-Day has made three attempts to break into Bangalore. The first was in the early 1980s under the redoubtable Khalid A.H. Ansari, and the second in the late 1980s under his sons Tarique and Sharique Ansari, when the Bangalore editions of Sunday Mid-Day rolled out. Both those attempts came quickly unstuck. The…
The curious case of The Times of India and HT
Does the home-turf breed complacence? Media specialist and author of The Indian Media Business, Vanita Kohli-Khandekar, makes an interesting observation in her column in Mid-Day, Bombay. *** “Mumbai is my hometown. In my growing up years we took only one newspaper at home—The Times of India…. “In 2003, I shifted to New Delhi. And TOI turned out to…
How papers are working around wage board
With the Union government having notified the recommendations of the Majithia wage board for journalists and other employees, newspaper managements are on a collision course. The Indian Newspaper Society (INS) has slammed the government go-ahead despite industry representations; at least three newspaper houses have filed cases against it; and insiders say a November 16 meeting…
Journalist arrested in journalist’s murder case
Jigna Vora, the deputy bureau chief of The Asian Age, Bombay, who was arrested today in connection with the dastardly murder of Mid-Day journalist J. Dey. Vora, who was formerly of Mumbai Mirror, has been charged under Section 120 (b) of the Indian penal code (conspiracy), read with 302 (murder) and Maharashtra control of organised…
Scam-buster Josy Joseph gets Prem Bhatia prize
Josy Joseph of The Times of India, who authored the paper’s big scoops on the Adarsh housing and CWG scams last year, has bagged the 2011 Prem Bhatia award for excellence in political reporting. He shares the award with J. Dey, the crime reporter of Mid-Day, who was slain in Bombay recently. Joseph, whose career…
3 deaths, 14 attacks on journos in last six months
GEETA SESHU writes from Bombay: The killing of Mid-Day (special investigations) editor J.Dey on Saturday, 11 June 2011, was the third death of a journalist in India over the last six months. In all three instances, investigations are on but no arrests have been made; much less is there any headway as to the killers…
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