For long, Sanjiv Goenka, one half of the R.P. Goenka family who runs the RP-Sanjiv Goenka group, has long had media ambitions. Forever in the running for media buys, Goenka’s name does the rounds each time some enterprise is up in the air, a bit like Rajeev Chandrasekhar‘s. Open magazine is all he has had…
Tag Archives: Rajeev Chandrasekhar
A well-travelled story is one which goes from Rediff to ‘Deccan Chronicle’ to ‘Prabhat Khabar’ to ‘India Today’ to ANI in 4 days flat, with a fiction writer somewhere in between
The heroic courage displayed by Indian soldiers while combating their Chinese counterparts on June 15, the day 20 of their brethren were killed literally at the hands of the Chinese, is now a project fully underway. Across platforms—a news portal (Rediff.com), an English newspaper (Deccan Chronicle), a Hindi newspaper (Prabhat Khabar), a news channel (India…
A Hindu bomber detonates the Mangalore ‘bomb’ in the face of Kannada news media. And a newspaper suggests mental tests and medical treatment for the ‘real terrorists’: embedded editors, owners and TV anchors.
Karnataka is the outlier in peninsular India—the only state in the South that the BJP has managed to come to power, by hook and by crook. Twice. There is a plethora of political reasons for this, including caste realignment, but there can be little doubt that the Kannada media has played a hands-on role in…
The amazing rise and dramatic fall of Ravi Prakash, a competent but colourful journalist who built one of India’s biggest, most influential news networks: TV9
TV9 “chairman, CEO and editor” Ravi Prakash, who shared the stage with prime minister Narendra Modi at the launch of ‘TV9 Bharatvarsh’ just 40 days ago, has been shown the door by the network’s new owners whom he, ironically, brought in to buy the company from its original promoter six months ago. An official spokesman (see statement,…
Kannada University postpones silver jubilee event after students and teachers object to the ‘consistent misogyny’ of an invitee: a right-wing newspaper Editor
The valedictory function of the silver jubilee of Kannada University—a University set up in Hampi in Karnataka 25 years ago to celebrate the state’s language—has been abruptly postponed following protests over the participation of a newspaper Editor. The event, scheduled for January 31 and February 1, was put off after students and professors objected…
A Kannada paper breaks RG’s code of silence
Even before he sat down last month with Kalpesh Yagnik of Dainik Bhaskar and Arnab Goswami of Times Now for one-on-one interviews, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi had met Editors in Delhi off and on, more off than on. These meetings were long, relaxed, informal but strictly off the record. Smart phones and cameras had to…
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…
Asianet journos, editors must declare assets
On the day the Indian Express in New Delhi has exposed how the “paid news” rot runs deep in BJP-ruled Chhattisgarh, Rajeev Chandrasekhar‘s Asianet News Network (ANN) has announced steps “to restore confidence in media” and urged all other media companies to follow suit: *** PRESS RELEASE: In the current backdrop of some cases and…
South media baron among top political donors
Mobile phone turned media baron and member of Parliament, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, continues to be a prominent donor to the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress, according to a list compiled by the asociation for democratic reforms (ADR). Chandrasekhar, an independent member of the Rajya Sabha elected with BJP support, who owns the Malayalam news channel…
Anti-minority bias behind foiled bid on journos?
For the second day running, most newspapers in Bangalore refrain from naming the editor, columnist and newspaper publisher who were allegedly the target of a failed assassination attempt, “masterminded”, according to the police, by a reporter working with the Bangalore-based Deccan Herald. (The first information report (FIR) filed on the arrests names the three targets:…
Sugata Raju is new editor of ‘Vijaya Karnataka’
Vijaya Karnataka, the Kannada daily from The Times of India group, has a new editor: Sugata Srinivasaraju, the former associate editor, south, of Outlook* magazine. He takes over from Vasant Nadiger who was officiating as editor following the sudden death of E. Raghavan in March. Raghavan had taken over VK from the paper’s longstanding editor…
Journalists vs journalist in Bangalore free-for-all
PALINI R. SWAMY writes from Bangalore: A veritable dogfight has broken out in Bangalore between a 24×7 Kannada news channel owned by the MP, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, and the owner-editor of a weekly Kannada newspaper. On the surface, the dispute is over credits for a recently released Kannada film. But, deep down, the spat has served…
Editor declares assets, liabilities on live TV
Even as a question mark hangs over the heads of many editors and journalists, H.R. Ranganath, the chairman and managing director of the newly launched Kannada news channel, Public TV, has declared his assets and liabilities on live television, with his tax consultant sitting alongside him and reading out the list. Ranganath—former editor of the…
Porngate: How BJP MLA blacked out TV, papers
A battle royale has broken out between the two leading Kannada news channels over who broke the porn video scandal, involving ministers in the BJP’s “gateway to the south”, Karnataka. Market leader TV9 ran a news item on its 9 pm primetime news show on Wednesday, complete with a visual of its head honcho, Mahendra…
Media baron donates most to parties after Birlas
The Economic Times has run a list of companies who made legal donations to political parties in 2009-10 based on a list compiled by the association for democratic reforms (ADR). At no.2—ahead of even the Tatas and ITC—with a total donation of Rs 12.5 crore (Rs 10 crore for the BJP and Rs 2.5 crore…
The sudden rise of media mogul Mukesh Ambani
Mukesh Ambani (left) went to sleep last night as India’s richest man and woke up this morning as also India’s biggest media mogul. That, in a nutshell, is the sum and substance of the dramatic announcement by Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) that it was getting into a tie-up with Raghav Bahl‘s Network18. The tie-up means…
Rajeev Chandrasekhar picking up Eenadu TV?
For a paper which turns its nose at news about the rest of the media, The Times of India has a strange item on its business page, news of the mobile phone entrepreneur turned member of Parliament, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, evincing some interest in Ramoji Rao‘s Eenadu television chain in Andhra Pradesh. The ToI report comes…
Nothing romantic about a candle-light newscast
Loadshedding, power cuts, outages, 2-phase supply etc are near-permanent words in the lexicons of news organisations in a country where electricity shortage is an everyday occurence. So how can the media bring some life to such a routine news story? In Karnataka, where scheduled loadshedding will be in force from today, Suvarna News, the 24×7…
‘Kannada Prabha’ is now Rajeev Chandrasekhar’s
Kannada Prabha, the Kannada daily established by Ramnath Goenka, has a new owner from today, 1 July 2011: mobile phone baron turned businessman and member of Parliament, Rajeev Chandrasekhar. Chandrasekhar’s Jupiter Media & Entertainment Ventures began the creeping acquisition of Kannada Prabha, valued at Rs 250 crore, through a “strategic business alliance” with Kannada Prabha Publications…
What the prime minister told Raghav Bahl
India’s tiger population is up 16%, but the number of paper tigers on the India Today power list of 2011 is down 20% from last year. From a high of ten in 2006, the number of media barons on the annual ranking stands at five. Samir Jain and Vineet Jain of The Times of India…
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