Shailaja Bajpai in the Indian Express: “If it’s Saturday, it must be Narendra Modi. If it’s Sunday, it must be Modi. If it’s Monday, it must be Modi and even if it’s Tuesday, it must be Modi. You get the general drift? “Every day is Modi-day on television news. One morning, they telecast his speech…
Tag Archives: Sangh Parivar
‘Modi’s backers, media owners have converged’
Harish Khare, former media advisor to prime minister Manmohan Singh, in The Hindu: “During a recent three-week stay in the United States, I was often asked to explain the Indian media’s current obsession with Narendra Modi. The only reasonably cogent answer to give was the convergence between the corporate ownership of the electronic media and…
Brajesh Mishra, Outlook, Indian Express and DD
The passing away of the former national security advisor and former foreign service officer Brajesh Mishra last week has resulted in a welter of tributes, many very mushy, a few critical, but almost all of them throwing light on the uncomfortable influence that the Vajpayee aide held over the media—and the chummy friendship that some…
‘Arun Shourie: a Hindu right-wing pamphleteer’
There are few more polarising figures in Indian journalism than Arun Shourie. For many of his professional peers, he is everything a journalist should not be: a wonky-eyed, hired gun of the Hindu right, selectively and deviously using facts to push its ideological and political agendas. Arrogant, intolerant, abusive, dictatorial, . For multitudes more, he…
A photographer’s delight strikes again (and again)
There is no other way to say this: the media will miss B.S. Yediyurappa. For three years and two months, the Karnataka chief minister was a photographer’s (and front page editor’s) dream come true, striking poses with his hands, legs, eyes, clothes and general demeanour. (Thankfully, he has reassured us that he will be back…
In Bangalore, 14 parties for media in 36 months
PALINI R. SWAMY writes from Bangalore: Although the size of the Karnataka market is smaller than Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala, Bangalore probably has the largest news media presence than the other three southern capitals and perhaps most other cities, barring Bombay and Delhi. At last count, there were 14 major morning brands (eight…
26/11, the RSS, the Editor & the Rajya Sabha seat
Last month, Aziz Burney, the influential editor of the Urdu daily Roznama Rashitriya Sahara, owned by Subroto Roy of the Sahara group, published a grovelling front-page apology for linking the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) with the 26 November 2008 siege of Bombay. In a box titled “Aziz Burney ki taraf se safaai aur maafi)” (A…
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…
For the BJP, is the pen mightier than the trishul?
PRITAM SENGUPTA writes from New Delhi: Four months after the “nasty jolt” in the 2009 general election (RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat‘s description), the BJP continues to be in a flap over the role of “friendly journalists” in its defeat—and after. Twice the party’s resident intellectual “for all matters requiring an IQ of 60”, Arun Shourie…
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…
Who are the journos ‘running & ruining’ the BJP?
PRITAM SENGUPTA writes from New Delhi: Former Indian Express editor Arun Shourie‘s explosive interview with the paper’s current editor, Shekhar Gupta, while revealing the deep schisms within India’s principal oppostion party, the BJP, has also once again thrown light on the less-than-professional role political journalists have been playing. For the second time in two months,…
Sure, but would he like to receive them today?
Watching TV used to be simple in the age of terrestrial broadcasting. The advent of satellite, cable and dish have made viewing a more pleasurable experience, of course, but there are also some unintended consequences. This afternoon, after news emerged that India’s principal opposition party, the BJP, had sacked its leading light Jaswant Singh against…
Don’t laugh: Do journos make good politicians?
PRITAM SENGUPTA in New Delhi and SHARANYA KANVILKAR in Bombay write: The stunning defeat of the BJP in the general elections has been dissected so many times and by so many since May 16 that there is little that has been left unsaid. What has been left unsaid is how the BJP’s defeat also marks…
How Chandan Mitra has his halwa and hogs it too
One of India’s oldest English dailies, The Pioneer, has undergone not so much a transformation but a transmogrification in recent years. Once a paper which had Rudyard Kipling on its rolls, and for which Winston Churchill served as a war correspondent, the low-circulation paper has returned to its politically conservative roots and become an unabashed…
Prime Minister, maybe, but not a very good sub
Indian prime minister hopeful, L.K. Advani, prides himself as a former journalist, having worked at the journal Organiser, published by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), where for seven years he wrote film reviews. Former Mid-Day editor Aakar Patel uses Advani’s memoirs My country, My life to assess the man credited with the “when-asked-to-bend, the-Indian-media-crawled” quote…
‘Media’s double standards to measure terrorism’
The “Eye for an Eye” email sent out by the “Indian Mujahideen” before the Delhi blasts on Saturday, while using the “injustice and oppression inflicted upon Muslims all over the country” as a justification for the attack, also targets the Indian English print media in particular: “The coverage of news by both the electronic as…
IJR 