ALTHOUGH INDIA™S MEDIA and particularly the press, has earned a global reputation for its independence and fearless reportage, it has its downside. For one, it™s infested with insecure, perhaps even paranoid, media moguls and journalists down the line who pretend other news channels and newspapers don™t exist. Moreover, the Indian media has justifiably acquired the reputation for pontification to the extent that when it comes to following its sermonising with the smallest action, the native hue of resolution is sicklied o™er with the pale cast of thought. A case in point are the proprietors of the commendably liberal Chennai-based daily The Hindu,which with its daily circulation of 1.5 million dominates peninsular India like a colossus, and is reportedly in the pink of (financial) health. In a well-phrased lead edit (October 13) welcoming the award of the Nobel Peace Prize 2014 to Pakistani and Indian child rights activists Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi, the editors rue that child rights and education œthe prerequisite of development and peace in our times have been widely disregarded in post-independence India™s national development effort. It™s the responsibility of nations to œprovide the means of formal education, leisure, safety, and care for all children, says the editorial. But the yawning chasm between preaching and practice of The Hindu was revealed when the editors of EducationWorld ” established to promote child rights and QEFA (quality education for all) ” visited N. Ram, chairman of Kasturi & Sons Ltd, in the imposing offices of the company over a decade ago. Perhaps peninsular India™s premier newspaper group could lend a helping hand to EW by signing a commercial agreement to distribute this publication? The suggestion was dismissed out of hand by Ram, who was more interested in the personal history of EW™s charming managing editor. One hopes The Hindu editorial under reference will awake this quintessential Cadillac communist to acknowledge that there™s nothing wrong in cooperating with other news publications in the cause of providing formal education, leisure, safety and care for all children. MBA (Politics) AN EXCELLENT IDEA WHICH is certain to revive the reportedly sagging bottomlines of the country™s 4,500 B-schools, is to offer courses on how to succeed in electoral politics. The monotonous regularity with which Gandhi follows Gandhi, Munde Munde and Shinde Shinde into Parliament and state legislative assemblies, and the alacrity with which each generation doubles the value of its wealth and assets indicates that politics is the most fast-track career option in contemporary India. According to the Association for Democratic Reforms™ website of winners of the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, Rahul Gandhi, MP (Congress) for Amethi, who has engaged in no other vocation and not very successfully in politics, has accumulated assets valued at Rs.9.40 crore; Shyama Charan Gupta, MP (BJP) for Allahabad Rs.47.28 crore and Muttamsetti Srinivasa Rao, MP (TDP) for Ankapalle who also has a pending criminal case against him and whose education qualification is described as illiterate, has a net worth of Rs.21.32 crore. Few ˜successful™ professionals ” your…
