Patti and Thatha, Aai and Dada—and Kedar: the warmest tributes for Pandit Jasraj come from lifelong friendships forged across India
Pandit Jasraj’s departure to a higher orbit—somewhere between Mars and Jupiter, along with Mozart, Beethoven and Pavarotti—has inspired some fabulous pictures, anecdotes and tributes in the newspapers. Actually, that’s not hyperbole. As the Hindustan Times reminds us, …
Facebook and Narendra Modi: How FB’s policy head in India allowed a BJP politician to spread hate online so that it would not hurt its “business prospects”
Facebook’s shady role in Indian politics—hunting with the majoritarian hounds and fuelling the communal fires, for a price—has been blazingly apparent for over eight years now. But it has taken …
J-POD || Podcast || “In 1962, Nehru heard the Opposition, convened Parliament, didn’t stifle media. In 2020, Modi is trying to snatch victory from jaws of defeat by managing headlines” || Jairam Ramesh
https://soundcloud.com/user-311470525/j-pod-jairam-ramesh-on-nehru When WhatsApp becomes the chief source of information, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that India was a mere 15 years old as a free nation …
A Gandhian Editor—an oxymoron in Indian journalism—returns to a real farm house in the countryside, after staying 43 years in an orphanage
In Delhi, Editors living in farm houses are a benchmark for #PannaPramukhs still aspiring and perspiring to clamber up the greasy totempole. Sainik Farms has a number of #EditorialWarriors. A …
30 oddly satisfying headlines about Vikas
“Vikas has been “arrested“; long live Vikas.” “Vikas has “surrendered“; long live Vikas.” Whichever way you look at it, arrest or surrender, the sight of “Vikas Dubey Kanpurwala” sitting upright in …
“India has ceded territory to China. Status quo ante has been lost. China has redrawn LAC”: scathing editorials call the Narendra Modi government’s bluff on the ‘Surender’ in Ladakh
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 …
What Narendra Modi and Nirmala Sitharaman can learn from the Mughals, the Marathas—and the Maharaja of Mysore—on direct cash transfer to India’s needy
With millions suddenly thrown out of jobs due to closures and shutdowns following the COVID outbreak, or deprived of a source of livelihood, governments across the world have rushed to …
“Ambiguous. Beseiged. Confusing. Disappointing. Dismaying. Evasive. Frightening. Unpardonable. Unsatisfactory. PM should speak again”: editorials on ‘Surender’ Modi’s cop-out
The major English newspapers all have editorials on Narendra Modi‘s brazen lie, without taking the name of China, that “no one has intruded on Indian soil, nor is any one …
J-POD || Podcast || “National newspapers devote 0.67% of front page to 69% of India. Corporate media is the bed on which religious and market fundoos cohabit. Morons are reworking labour laws” || P. Sainath
https://soundcloud.com/user-311470525/j-pod-p-sainath-on-the-media Less than 2% of India’s population is invested in stocks and mutual funds. Yet, India has at least half-a-dozen business newspapers in English. And just as many business news …
‘Onions suck out bacteria. Neem sanitiser works for 15 days. Brahmins in Bhopal were saved by prayers over fire”: advice from a top Kannada publisher, an ex-BJP MP, to fight Coronavirus
Vijay Sankeshwar, the transport operator who founded Vijaya Karnataka and Vijaya Vani, shocking the Deccan Herald group and The Times of India group respectively, has offered his sage advice on …
A lot can happen over coffee: politics, business, big money, tax terrorism, scandal, and a happy ending
The juiciest story today is the news that the Karnataka Congress chief D.K. Shiva Kumar’s daughter is to marry the son of the founder of Cafe Coffee Day, the late …
Banks, lamps, oil, paints, paper, planes, power, soap, silk, steel, sugar: the precocious Maharaja who made Mysore “self-reliant”—a century before Narendra Modi could say ‘atma nirbhar’
Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s tongue-twisting call for an “Atmanirbhar Bharat” has evoked the usual gloating among the devout who still can’t get over Niti Aayog’s nursery-school alliteration, “vocal for local”. …
In the end, words are all that will survive. And, after six decades of writing, Shantadevi Kanavi’s thoughts live on in six languages.
Shantadevi Kanavi, the Kannada short story writer, has passed away in Belgaum due to age-related issues. She was 87. In a six-decade life in words, Ms Kanavi had eight collections: …
Rajendra Singh Babu on Ambarish, biryani and the Punjabification of food for the mouth—and the mind—of Kannadigas
In the Kannada daily Praja Vani today, the acclaimed Kannada movie director S.V. Rajendra Singh Babu uses biryani as a metaphor to articulate the travails facing the Kannada movie industry …
What you (really) need to know today: Jubilant Generics, the “single-source” of 82% COVID cases in Mysore that went below the media radar, because, maybe, it wasn’t in Delhi, or the Tablighi Jamaat
For over 50 days now, R. Sukumar, the editor of the Delhi newspaper Hindustan Times, has written a daily wrap titled ‘COVID-19: What you need to know today‘. But three …
‘Namma’ Uday Kumar has a small story to tell about how #Coronavirus has changed his life. When you see someone like him tomorrow morning, it is good to keep him in mind and say ‘Namaskara’.
Something about the creeping crisis in Indian media doesn’t smell right. On the one hand, media barons, who should be steering clear of government if they value their freedom, …
J-POD || Podcast || “Kannada newspapers’ circulation is down from 25 lakhs to 5 lakhs due to #Corona. No ads, no sales, no newsprint. It’s unimaginable; a grave existential crisis” || ‘Vishwa Vani’ editor and owner, Vishweshwar Bhat
Media management in India doesn’t present a pretty sight on a day when the “Old Lady of Bori Bunder” rides on little #Corona to announce salary cuts and defer increments, …
Six heart-warming stories of Muslims coming to the aid of Hindus in #Corona season: How come no swami, yogi, baba, guru or godman has the nerve to speak for “communal harmony” any more?
*** Coronavirus has been communalised to such a degree in India by the usual suspects—and their “useful idiots” in the media—it should leave genuine Hindus aghast at what is being …
“#Coronavirus tells us that government matters, facts and science matters, rule of law matters. That having leaders who are humble and well-informed, and want to bring people together rather than drive them apart matters.”
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Barack Obama (@barackobama) Barack Obama had his flaws and faults, of course, but he was such a brilliant speaker they …
From double-digit to zero per cent growth: how India’s economic future looks bleaker than ever before, if only you can remove your blinkers
*** The Economic Survey, released a day before Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Union Budget on February 1, had projected a GDP growth of 6-6.5%, up from 5% estimated for 2019-20. …
J-POD || A podcast on journalism || Why my mother would not have cheered the suspension of publication of ‘Star of Mysore’—despite its Islamophobic editorial
J-POD || A podcast on journalism || Why Sharada Viswanath (and hundreds of mothers) would not have celebrated the temporary suspension of publication of India’s most successful English evening newspaper …
If you are a journalist, if you 40-50 years old, if you are out of a job or in danger of losing it due to #Coronavirus, what can you do? Prem Panicker has a few thoughts on J-POD.
J-POD || A podcast on journalism || Prem Panicker, the former Rediff.com Editor and Yahoo! India managing editor, on what Indian journalists, whose jobs are in danger due to #Coronavirus, …
Journalism in the time of COVID: Why Indian TV anchors and reporters need to read up what Article 51 (a) (h) of the Constitution stands for
Campaign for Ethical Media Reporting, a Bangalore-based group of activists, parents, lawyers, and academicians who are working towards making media more accountable to journalistic standards, ethics and principles, has put …
Has #CoronaVirus helped Narendra Modi to discover the virtues of democracy? Or, has ‘The Supreme Leader’ only craftily seized the moment to craft a new persona for himself?
Across the world—from Britain to Israel, Chile to Bolivia, Hungary to Philippines—political analysts and academics are horrified at the powers elected leaders are accumulating under the cover of #COVID to …