Every action has a positive and negative reaction
Every individual has good and bad habits, some have good overpowering the bad and some bad overpowering the good.
Even a magazine has got its pluses and minuses in it.We need to evaluate the overall plus and minus to come to a conclusion on the overall rating of a magazine.
Let me get into the pros of India Today:
1)An in detailed analysis of the cover report with guest columns and giving the perspective of the both the sides is the hallmark of India Today (refer latest IT on Afghanistan special)
2)Images of Afghanistan from 1978 to 2001 (excellent photography and good insight of the changes that have happened in that country.
3)Fifth Column by Tavleen Singh, Kautilya by Jairam Ramesh and Politically Correct by P Chidambaram are worth reading and well written.
4)News notes gives me the snippets of the happenings around covering a wide spectrum of the society from politics, music , health etc.,
5)Good coverage of major happenings in the States with the feature devoted to Tamilnadu politics
6)Good articles of Metro today (activities that happen in the metros )
7)Good review on new books
8)Eye catchers in the last page (devoted to celebrities and entertainments)
An overall well represented magazine with good news items that are worth reading
The cons of India Today :
The magazine has fallen into the traditional trap that all Indians fall into, be it the industry or the magazine or product. The magazine lost out to competition because it could not change with the changing times. Like Bajaj reacted late on scooters , fiat in the cars, India today also reacted late with the other magazine (Outlook scoring over it in terms of content, layout and timing)
In the present scenario magazines fall under the Fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) category i.e., daily use articles like soaps , oils etc. As the Fmcg products keep changing in terms of looks etc, the need of the hour is to emulate this category for the magazines to stay in the race. With onslaught of television, news magazines are likely to have a tough task ahead of them
India Today definitely needs an overall layout/ design change to make it more reader friendly.
Conclusion:
My views are India Today should concentrate more on analysis of the news rather giving the news that has already happened ( covered extensively by the television media)
There is always an accusation that India Today is pro government, of late it has started being impartial giving views of the both the sides for us to form an opinion. That is what a good magazine has to do
I find the magazine slowly and steadily becoming more pro-active. Give it some time I am sure it will bounce back