I should make it clear that I don’t have a particular axe to grind with ToI but I frequently despair at both the content and the direction of the Bangalore edition. I’ve referred to ToI many times in my India in my Nightie blog, primarily because of the poor quality of journalism which frequently exhibits minimal understanding of basic English grammar and punctuation, not to mention syntax. (My Hindi and Kannada are not too hot either, but then I don’t publish a newspaper in those languages).
The Indian public has a choice of course, and nobody thrusts The Times down your throat, however I do feel that people in India - despite only have to cough up three rupees for a weekday copy - are being short-changed.
And why is it that the Times seems to feel duty bound to run one "We-the-people-type" campaign after another? "Lead India" was deemed a success by, surprise surprise, The Times of India which stated that the campaign "was more about providing every right-thinking Indian a chance to step out of the comfort zone and take on the task of stewarding the nation." Well, all well and good, but we have elected MLAs who are supposed to do that. Wouldn’t the paper have been better advised to concentrate on say, addressing corruption in the country and securing a commitment from Central Government to tackle the issue, rather than electing a people’s champion who, despite his abilities, wields no real authority?
There were ToI campaigns before of course, but since then we’ve had a campaign aimed at improving infrastructure in Bangalore (which seemed to die a death once the State election results had come in) and now a Citizen Agenda. Campaigning is all well and good but at times, reading ToI is like picking up a parish newsletter rather than a national Daily.