Harmony makes its presence felt

Harmony has just completed one year. And is slowly making its presence felt all over the country. The magazine that is aimed at the elderly citizens last month came out with Anniversary issue. The July issue has Anu Aga on the cover page.

Raj Express growing in Madhya Pradesh

The rise of Raj Express in Madhya Pradesh has filled the void that existed for long in the state. Despite its vast Hindi readership, Madhya Pradesh was often overlooked by big media groups and the result was the monopoly of Dainik Bhaskar group, which marginalised all other newspapers including Nava Bharat.

Bhaskar was way ahead of all newspapers in quality of matter and technology. Dainik Jagran's editions in Madhya Pradesh were shabby in comparison. But the launch of Raj Express by a builder a few months ago has changed the situation.

Now Dainik Bhaskar has a competitor that markets its newspaper aggressively and is ready to pump money. The Bhopal edition of Raj Express is already giving sleepless nights to Bhaskar. The paper plans to go to cities other than Bhopal and Indore, and launch editions in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh.

Mumbai Mirror!

Did any one hear about Mumbai Mirror after the hoopla surrounding its launch almost a month ago. It was heard that except free copies and subscriptions, thousands of copies were going as raddi. But the Economic Times proclaimed within a fortnight of the launch 'Mirror creating waves in Ad circle'. Soon Times wrote 'Mumbai Mirror demand has outpaced its supply'. The reality will emerge in a few months but one thing is clear. No one in the media world blows its own trumpet better than the Times of India group.

Pioneer Media School

The Pioneer regularly prints the in-house advertisement of Pioneer Media School. One wonders what would be taught in PMS. Though no big prizes for guessing about the curriculum. Surely, the faculty would be great, Balbir Punj, Sandhya Jain, Prafull Goradia, Tarun Vijay et al. And the BJP can now hope to get an entire brigade of journalists that would come out of the Media School to suit its likes.

EditIndia: An Indian Media Watchdog

Imrana case exposes journos

The Imrana case has once again exposed the journalists who lack the expertise on their subject and rush to conclusions without understanding the real issue. Some of the correspondents who were rushed to the spot after the incident lacked understanding of Muslim personal law.
They did not understand the terminologies and had no knowledge whatsoever of the problem. Some reporters tended to be commentative. Even the senior persons on the desk of news channels came out as hopeless people. The problem is when the Aalim (singular for Ulema) says a common Arabic or Urdu word and the terminology is not understood by the reporter or the coordinator of the programme. Either the person conducting the programme should do some homework before embarking on the complex issues or leave it for specialists. What a situation it is when the cleric says Khula which is about a woman's right seeking divorce (here Kh is not Hindi 'kha' as in Khana but Arabic Khe as in Khazana) but the journalists thinks it is Khula (Hindustani) that means open.
Such ridiculous situations occurred frequently. It was NDTV that once again appeared serious, sympathetic and unbiased. Other channels fell prey to the Shahbano Syndrome and did not know what to make out of the issue except sensationalising and sermonising.