While reading through some of the reviews on mouthshut.com, I came across a few reviews on “Times Of India” (or TOI) and was surprised to find people having such a bad opinion about this newspaper. In this age of Internet and information superhighway, TOI is the second largest selling NEWSPAPER in the whole world! I don’t think TOI could have gained such popularity if it was just some newspaper. I personally feel it one the best newspapers you can come across.
Right from the time I started reading a newspaper, it has always been TOI.
TOI established in 1838, is one of the nations oldest newspaper. Along with the main paper there are always complementary sections like Bombay times (that’s because I stay in Bombay), which is, published everyday and other sections like “Education Times”, “Ascent”, “Computing Times”, “Property Times” etc which are published once a week. On Sundays there are two sections of “Sunday Review”.
The main paper is basically divided into the following sections: The City, India, International, Editors Page, Business Times and Times sport. Q & A section on the editor’s page and Times sport are my favorite sections.
Bombay Times is more like a magazine that covers the various city happenings including news about celebrities from Bollywood and Hollywood. The comic section generally on the second page is my favorite in the whole newspaper.
Among the other sections “Times Computing and Education Times” are the best sections of TOI. TOI was probably the first newspaper to start these complementary sections.
Education Times every week gives us complete information about a particular carrier. So many new branches and carrier options have come oflate, and education times keeps us up to date with all these new carrier options.
Information Technology has been the most happening sector in the world for the past few years and even more happening for Indians. Times Computing provided information about the entire new happening in the IT industry.
The best section in these complementary parts of the newspaper is that they have a few interactive sections, where the readers write letters to the newspaper and ask their doubts and queries related to carrier and computers. Professional counselors and computer experts give the answers to these queries.
I could just go on and on describing as to why I feel that TOI is one of the best newspapers… the cartoons by Laxman on the first page, sports reviews by Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri, Glen McGrath, Tony Greg and other famous cricketers, the articles on God and peace of mind by Roli Shrivatsav ….etc…etc…etc
Before ending, I would like to say that you cannot classify TOI as the “worst” newspaper just because it gave excessive coverage to some particular event or on the basis of some article published or some front page photo; ‘on the whole’, it is the most comprehensive and complete newspaper.