Bullets in Mahajan's body: India TV beats other channels

Pramod Mahajan was in the hospital. His brother Praveen pumped bullets in his stomach from point blank range. But several hours after he was admitted in the hospital and the operation was going on, most of the channels claimed that the bullets had been taken out.
Meanwhile, the correspondents of India TV (Rajat Sharma) remained firm that the bullets were not taken out. The anchor tried to grill the reporter if their reports were correct and latest because other channels claimed otherwise. And it was laudable how the reporter made his point.
A few hours later all other channels had to retract and said that yes the bullets were still in.
The big names like Jitendra Dixit of Star TV and other journos of Ajtak, NDTV India and English channels were exposed--they were just going by the hearsay and had no sources. The Crime Reporters, Saiyadain Zaidi and Wahid Ali Khan of India TV need to be praised for their groundwork and contacts as shown throughout the day in their reporting.

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HT's business daily: Will it challenge ET

So Hindustan Times has finally announced its decision to launch its pink paper. The appointment of Raju Narisetti as editor of the paper was announced recently. Narisetti, around 40 years old was editor of Wall Street Journal.
For several years HT wanted a business daily to compete the TOI that has a superbrand like ET. Though many business papers are available in the market there is surely a space for another quality pink paper. Business Line is confined to certain areas, Business Standard has a section of devoted readers and Financial Express is near-dead. The DNA's biz daily hasn't shown any potential.
Clearly, the two giant bania media groups HT and TOI group are going to eat the small fries and share the profits amongst themselves in near future. Meanwhile, the market for biz magazines is hotting up. Many magazines are coming up and seems that every magazine is getting a foothold. Good for journos.

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Express anchor on Bhopal gas tragedy 'crusader'

The irony is that Bhopal Gas Tragedy, a horrific disaster, sells as news both within the country and outside. Many people including me were shocked to read the story that appeared as anchor on page 1.
Those who have visited Bhopal, witnessed the plight of gas victims and problems of victims like women who are infertile and have enormous complications apart from the problems of relief and rehabilitation know how NGOs have exploited the gas victims.
The story is sadly done without research.
I don't say that the NGO hasn't done work. It has done, lot of work. But the story has glaring errors. Can a person sitting in New York do a story in Katrina and it would appear in NYT. No, it will not then why IE can carry such a story.
I have been to Bhopal several times and seen the truth of many such crusaders and the real men who are unsung heroes. I don't want to comment further because I might be mistaken as a party. But the men who have worked tirelessly for the cause of gas victims have always been ignored because they don't know english, are not publicity-savvy and are too plagued by the problems of the victims to go to Delhi or New York and get publicity. Even the facts are wrong.
Sonu Jain is a veterna journo and even I didn't expect such inaccuracies. Sarangi reached Bhopal in the late nineties and two decades of crusade is all farce. This NGO business is getting too messier and nasty.
Everybody trading on tragedies, poverty and poor people. If a self-styled activist speak good English, can do networking, is able to hold candle light procession or similar shows that sell in the western media, even our gullible journos believe. Writing 600 words is easy but shouldn't some research be done.

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This isn't Africa...Malnutrition Vs Sensex

The Hindustan Times recently published the photograph of the malnourished child in Thane under the headline that 'This isn't Africa'. Some channels also thought they needed to carry the story.
Yes this is a face of India. We are not cynic and don't blame the channels and papers for covering the chatterati and glitterati all the time. But my humble question is why we go ga ga everyday over the climbing sensex and the mirage of India getting wealthy by doing stories on IIMs, software professional's stories et al.
See any English news channel and market, business, sensex is all you get most of the times. Where is rural India or even the poor India in the cities around us. Or the real middle-class and its problems.
All the time one sees airlines, air travel getting cheaper or competitive, f&#&ing Bollywood stars giving their funny bytes, geeks, filthy rich and all. Show them but show the 90% rest also. (The photo above is that of CNN IBN story with the link http://www.ibnlive.com/article.php?id=7946§ion_id=3)
But imagine the main news channels showing programmes on ghosts, spirits and haunted houses. This is truly a shame.

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