Who does it better?

It is difficult to be a mute spectator, when two rival publications decide to massacre each other and spill blood on their newsprint. Has anyone noticed how 'intellectuals' and 'strategists' at both KG Marg and BSZ Marg have been sweating it out at delivering innovative survival techniques?
To me however it seems that both are hammering at the same ideas. In the entire blizzard of promotional schemes and new marketing strategies from both camps, I only see a zealous attempt to outdo each other. Frankly, BSZ seems to be winning the hand right now.
Examples really are in plenty. I know for a fact that during the entire re-launch jamboree, HT was seriously considering starting a section called the two minute news on page2, which never saw the light of the day. Imagine my amazement, when I chanced upon the same concept on TOI's portal (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/toi2minutes.cms). Obviously, TOI nurtured the idea that had been left orphaned by HT.
Look at the redesign itself. While HT (http://www.hindustantimes.com) went in for a Facebookish design with an emphatically stupid lowercase masthead, TOI wasted no such effort and resources on the task. They simply introduced the TOI Crest Edition (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/opinion/edit-page/The-Idea-of-Crest-A-weekend-edition-a-weeklong-read/articleshow/5067360.cms).
This new weekly, comes every Saturday, is worth Rs 6 and looks like TOI with a young. pepperminty interface, splashed with the colour azure. TOI also emphatically mentions that it's masthead is 171-year-old (HT's has been changed six times). The crest edition sort of summarises the entire week, with a tilt towards featurish stories and long essay articles.
Now, isn't that three pronged? You give thirsty journos the opportunity to write long articles, you give hungry readers more fodder to gorge upon and you just add another brooch to your dress that the rival embroidered into it's entire look.
Smart. What say you?

Youngistan's truth

With due respect to all those who predict the country's salvation at the hand of the youth, I got to know that there is a 47 year old youth congress president in a state down south! That is anything but acceptable...

Gandhi and Gandhi

The nation has become bewitched with the crown prince's charm. The austerity drive, the train ride, stays at dalit homes are all evident efforts to accumulate the support and love of the masses -- the magnitude who can create a new king in 2014.
But Gandhi's initiatives of late seem like leaves pulled out of another book; his newly found public persona strongly reminiscent of a 'surname'sake before him.
Remember Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi? The man, who for all his vision and fallacies, was the epitome of a public figure. A harbinger of many revolutions, MK became the source that gave strength to an entire nation of orphans during independence.
MK gave the country's larger populace an ideology to live by and a lifestyle that could be adopted. He introduced terms like satyagrah, harijan and non violence.
Along came a leader whose ideas could be emulated. MK was also a journalist during much of his youth. He edited several journals and also launched a handful of weeklies. Of these, the Indian Opinion, Young India and Harijan, all three printed in English, Hindi and Gujrati, were hotsellers.
MK was a passionate writer and translated much of his thoughts and advice for people in the editorials of these weeklies. He sought a mouthpiece suitable for discussion and public consumption, and he produced one.
Look at Rahul today. Despite criticism and a chequered beginning, the crown prince is being seen as his own man, than his late father's reproduction. But, his work and workstyle shows a distinct affiliation to the thinking of MK.
Look at the magazine -- a step at connecting with the youth through a mass medium. The austerity drive -- remember MK smiling in bare minimum facilities. The train travel -- MK travelled in a third class compartment of a train. Dalit companionship -- can you forget the fight for harijans?
Through the years, Rahul has launched several initiatives in his attempt to connect with the people of the day and reach out to them in their own language. And it is a mentor from the pages of history that Rahul seems to have chosen for help this time around.

FYI: MK preferred the model of subscription over advertisement for his weeklies (ignore the sarcastic tripe for marketing led products!).

RG's mag on hold

The newspaper with the lowercase masthead reports that Rahul Gandhi's magazine is on the backburner (http://www.hindustantimes.com/News/celebwatch/Rahul-s-mag-on-the-back-burner/Article1-452365.aspx)

A general buzz had been in the air for a while, but did not know that it would make it to the front of the daily so quickly Apparenty, say some going in and out of AICC, RG was getting perturbed at the project becoming media fodder. Considering his own PR strategy has changed remarkably in the past 15 months and has done wonders for him, the magazine making news for all the wrong reasons must have upset him.

Many probably reasons are doing the rounds ...from the most inane to teh crafty and the fictitious. Some say that Madam would-be editor was getting too big for her shoes, while some say that she was trying to become close to Big Boss (RG) through the project. But unfortunately, the ladder on which she was trying to climb, did not even have a first step.

Btw, she went ahead and cried foul at the reporter's expense, which was recognised as a desperate, last resort.

However, in general I think it is a big loss for the youth of the country, who may just have gained some new insight through this mag.

Anyway, more later!

Business of politics...continued

And why only Maytas? Lanco's owner Madhusudan Rao is a Congress MP.
The proximity of GM Rao (of GMR fame) and GVK Reddy (GVK Infra) families to 10 Janpath is well known. I know from friends of the family that they also quietly breed political ambitions, but have not made it evident because of the fear of antagonising 10 JP.
Deccan Chronicle's Ram Reddy has still not given up his desire to be a Congress Rajya Sabha MP. Subbarami Reddy is the undisputed liquor baron.
On the other hand, in Maharashtra, grapevine has that the entire sugar business is controlled by people associated with Sharad Pawar.
You find purely political people only in the Hindi heartland...where politics for them means politics, and is not just a medium to strengthen or protect their business interests.
Infact, clear segregation between politics and business is extremely important. If the country is run by businessmen, it will destroy the whole social fabric, on which we are based.
The idea of NREGA could have only be conceptualised by the likes of Rahul Gandhi and Raghuvansh Prasad Singh. While the latter owes his roots to the rural cowbelt, Rahul has extensively toured rural areas and interacted with the rural poor.
For them, politics is not a means to attain further successes in business. On the other hand,a businessman politician would have argued that schemes like NREGA are wasteful investment, because there is hardly any return on the capital deployed.
Not that I am a great fan of NREGA, and there are many flaws in the way it is currently undertaken (will come back with more on this in the next post). But all said and done, the scheme has at least provided a source of basic sustenance for several millions of rural youth.

The business of politics

Someone with the right political knowhow made quite an interesting observation. He says that it is curious that in South India businessmen do politics, while in West India (read Maharastra) politicians do business.

Doesn't the word Maytas transit through your mind right now...?

Bhartiya Jhagda Party?

The Bhartiya Janta Party is basking in internal combustion and that too on national television. But, the ongoing crisis in BJP brings with itself a huge set of opportunities for third generation leaders such as Rajiv Pratap Rudy and Shahnawaz Hussain. The current incidents in the party will see almost all the gen two biggies demolish each other. So while Arun Jaitley never misises an opportunity to lash out at Rajnath Singh and Sushma Swaraj, Vasundhara Raje is busy convincing that it is she who is the mass face of the party.

Ever since its inception, in the post JP era, BJP has always fancied itself as 'the party with a difference'. Essentially, what differentiated BJP from Congress and the regional parties was organisational discipline -- a trait which the BJP had clearly borrowed from the RSS.

So, what went wrong?

One thing that has definitely not worked for BJP is politics of co-option. In its urge to prove its governance capabilities, the party gave lateral entry to more than half a dozen 'experts' such as Arun Shourie, Jaswant Singh and Yashwant Sinha. Place for these was created at the cost of people who had much stronger affiliation with the Sangh, the likes of Govindacharya and Uma Bharti.

In the process, bjp by default started getting distance from rss and obviously cud not lverage the organisational planning which has always been a core strength of rss.

I personally think it was a wonderfully carved two pronged strategy of RSS because of which, in just a span of ne decade, BJP emerged as the biggest opposition party in the country from just having two MPs in 1984.

RSS as an organisation works with acute precision and planning. In the early 90s, there were two distinct set of strengths with which the bjp was proceeding. There was an organisation in place whicch was v strict, hardcore in terms of its ideology, absolutely inflexible and thoroughly regimented. It comprised of the likes of Govindacharya and Advani who in turn were direct proteges of the legendary Raju Bhaiya. On the other hand, there was a public face to it that was liberal, flexible and mass based..traits which were very reminisent of the personalitty of Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

And while Vajpayee was still being groomed for the country's top job, Sangh, in its true style of functioning, had already drawn up his succession plan.

So why did Sangh give up now? Y isn't it interfering when BJP is going through one of its worst crisis?

Will come back on this..gotta get back to work