Of little consequence

These days, I often find very little news to read in the daily papers. By that I mean news of very little consequence. On most days, the papers have no worthwhile news to report. The media simply fills the pages of the newspapers with any news they can get their hands on. Some of it is self-congratulatory – a narcissistic self-fulfilment for us Indians. Sadly, India’s leading English-language daily, The Times of India, fits this description perfectly. Here’s an example:

While the whole world is talking about the killings in Kenya, where over 800 people have died in the past four days, The Times of India (in Bangalore – that’s where I am at present) today has ‘Monkey off Bhajji’s back’ as the main story on their front page. It reports about a ban on Indian cricketer, Harbhajan Singh, for an alleged racist remark made to an Aussie player in an earlier test match, being lifted and Harbhajan Singh’s name being cleared of the racial charge.

This main story is supported by other headlines on the front page: (a) ‘Tests confirm it is water contamination’ – about illness and death in Bangalore from contaminated drinking water; (b) ‘Re rise pinches IT staff pockets’ – about the rise in the Indian rupee having a negative impact on salaries of information technology employees; (c) ‘Illegal copter landing leads to mare’s death’ – about a horse in Mumbai’s Mahalaxmi race course being put to sleep when it broke a leg against a barrier while trying to escape in panic, when a helicopter landed on the race course.

More interestingly, today’s Times of India also has a substantially large picture of a spanking-new winding highway; the image spread diagonally across the bottom half of the front page. I didn’t get the significance of this picture… until I noticed some small-print text on the image bottom, leading to a full-page colour ad on Page 5 of the newspaper. The ad on Page 5 belonged to IRB Infrastructure Developers Ltd, which builds (yes, you guessed it) highways and roads in India, and is planning on an IPO to raise funds for its projects.

And, the killings in Kenya story? I couldn’t find it at all. Not even on the Times Global page (Page 21) with its ‘Love All Nations Alike’ tag line. The main story here was ‘Bush admits economy in distress, won’t take blame’.

Distress is what I feel when I read The Times of India these days. But then, will the newspaper take the blame for delivering to our doorsteps news of so little consequence?