I have been previously accused of being fanatically loyal to India-Today magazine. I have been reading it for almost 18 years. It made sense to go check with the bookstore guy if the magazine had hit the stores. those were days when its analysis was almost like the ultimate truth.
In the last few years though, I see a tilt towards more commercialisation-it is as if the owners have been hit by a never ending greed for money. there are more adverts than content. they seem to have started the practice of making the cover page as two-page fold-in that can also carry extra advertisements.
I can understand the compulsion for revenue but somewhere there needs to be a balance between commercial intent and political content. For the last few years "outlook" and "the week" seem to have strongly emerged as competitiors to India today. I prefer to check these three magazines and pick and choose the one that has the best story-India today is not a compulsion anymore. I wish the magazine would have focussed more on content that adverts. the quality of content seems to have deteriorated. I wish they would continue to publish critical investigative stories once again. sigh!
There are few cutting edge writers left with the mag-especially N.Prasannarajan who writes hard hitting essays-three cheers to him!