Don't Make Promises You Can't Deliver On

The Cabinet is quoted as saying: We will liquidate the terrorists and their sponsors wherever they are, whoever they are. Can they deliver on that promise? Even if the terrorists and/or their sponsors are holed up in (oh, say) Karachi? Part of me hopes they will, the other part is busy trying to forget the all jokes about indian politicians and promises.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged

Holy Cows

The Indian Express: the Government finds [these 16 pages] so dangerous that in an unprecedented circular all CBSE schools have been directed to ‘delete’ these sections ‘with immediate effect.’ And ensure that they ‘not be taught in the respective classes’, or even ‘discussed in the classrooms’.

These portions include: Pages 40-41: Romila Thapar’s Ancient India textbook for Class VI: About 50 words on the status of cows in village households mentioning that ‘beef was served as a mark of honour to special guests’ and that in later centuries, Brahmans were forbidden to eat beef’.

Yeah, so they ate beef in India as early as the Rig Vedic period. India’s dirty little secret — the sacred cows weren’t always that way. Didn’cha know that?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged

The Newspaper Today becomes Subscriber-only

From the end-of-free dept: TNT Subscriptions: can they pull this off? Not even the NY Times — who have an electronic edition — or Salon with their premium content make the mistake of asking people to pay up after the first page itself. Living Media is probably betting on the strength of the India Today/Aaj Tak franchise to win it subscribers, but it may be forgetting that the people who read IT or watch Aaj Tak will be the last to pay up for this — and a lot of them are savvy enough to figure out alternative sources and start going elsewhere. It’s position in the NRI market is a lot stronger, though, since it is read by far more of them vis-a-vis Outlook, Frontline and The Week. Is the India Today brandname worth paying the (admittedly affordable) Rs500/$10.50 per year? Questions, questions…