SMS

The power of SMS which seems to have affected the entertainment programmes on TV channels seems to have moved into the newspaper editorial sphere now.Times Of India has empowered its readers to give their views on the columnists through SMS.And two of the columnist in STOI(out of the 4)has put their pen to paper to comment on this aspect...Bachi Karkaria and Jug Suraiya..those old calpals..wrote in their own inimatable style about this new phenomenon(actually the way things are moving nowadays..we may soon get a "best columnist in the country"voting done over mobile)..while the Ms. touched upon this while commenting overall regarding the 'identity crisis" of journalists..which gets mitigated to a great extent by the accompanying photograph..Mr. commented on this while discussing on "customer choice".

DNA,on the other hand had a nice article ..full of nostagia..from Ayaz Memon on Brabourne Stadium...worth going through.

The "Racism" race

Karan Thapar and Jug Suraiya have put their views on the Dutch Drama....each in their own style..Jug has tried to bring out the racism present amongst Indians vis a vis their intranational portrayals..Bongs..Punjus...Biharis..how one has got typical stereotype image of others....Karan,on the other hand,has written on the correctness of Dutch action and the behaviour of Indians in general regarding this..His article,as was Goswami's a week ago,also cited personal examples of having seen Whites scrutinised in the similar way....Vir Sanghvi lectured on Vande Mataram(Barkha Dutt,has also written on the same topic in HT last week)...Both the articles(Vir's and Barkha's)brings out the inadequacy of students of 'posh" schools in Metros to understand the contexts that matter(or atleast that touches a rawnerve for majority of urban india)in most part of urban india middle class..that also shows the remoteness intheir understanding when they comment on topics like vande mataram..and their proficiency(especially Vir's..barkha is the queen of on spot reporting)in completing a column by more of english language and less of content takeaway.

The Dutch Drama

The midair dash in the Dutch domain has thrown two interesting stands from the two Indian editors-Vir Sanghvi and Gautam Adhikary.Sanghvi-in his HT column-has spoken about the obvious racial bias in the incident...such things will not be done for "whites",he says...It will be done for whites..and I have seen it...says Adhikary...Hmmmn...Interesting.
DNA,where apart from Adhikary,Jagannathan's column is also touching on the same topic..and it seems there is an editorial unanimity on the issue..we,Indians has a tendency to flout rules and we need to change the same as we become part of global village.
An interesting column is that of Swami aiyar in TOI...Milk contains more pesticide than Cola,it says...so why we are making so much ruckus over one and not even discussing the other...Hope that his views on this Cola-Milk case is in Black and White.

Sunday Columns

Three editors who write a weekly column in their newspaper(s)are :Gautam Adhikary(DNA),Vir Sanghvi(Hindustan Times)and M.J.Akbar(Asian Age & Deccan Herald).Times Of India,being Times Of India,has too many columns by editors(same at DNA,but there at least you know that Adhikary is the editor in chief)..Bachi Karkaria,Jug Suraiya,Swami Aiyar etc who all may be more chief than the editor whose name comes in fine print at the end page.
Akbar,this week,was writing about Alaska...as he generally does nowadays,not about Alaska but about some foreign location...just not the same Akbar who used to write about the Jagannath Mishras in mid 70s in now defunct SUNDAY or about Maliana massacre ....he has outgrown those days and also those touch...his columns nowadays sounds much more pontificating...
Pontification ,anyhow,is speciality of Vir Sanghvi..this week he did so on how the war on terror was lost though the battle was won..One fallout of globalisation is that now Indianeditors like Sanghvi pontificate more on US President's follies than on Indian Leaders' performance.

Adhikary,on the other hand,has stuck to his statesmanlike advise on soft issues-related to how we have become accustomed to or have surrendered to shortcomings(corruption,non integrity etc.)in search of shortcut.
Jug Suraiya has also become more of a travelogue than a satirist...describing his (along with Bunny)visits to,again foreign countries..editors are not visiting places like varanasi or Meerut nowadays,it seems....
Karkaria took a trip down the memory lane to Kolkata reliving her childhood memories explaining how many surnames are just a derivation of places....Generally we use to think it is the other way round...Thanks..Bachi.