Happy belated birthdays!

To Papermint (Mint, for the rest of you) and MetroNow (in Delhi), both papers have surprised some by their very survival and I must admit, it has been a steep learning curve. can't really do a year in review, since I cannot claim to have read the papers on a very regular basis, but lets start. MetroNow's biggest story of the year was the Gitanjali Nagpal aka 'Babe on the streets case', this was the year's highlight which the rest of the media picked up. But nothing else that metroNow really did was spectacular. Yes, it reprints some stuff that comes out in Mumbai Mirror, but somehow it seems to lack the irreverance of the Mumbaikar. MM is bindass, like the city, MetroNow is, well... Sadly, the paper suffers because of its rather weird parentage (where Bennett and HT Media both have 50 per cent stakes in an attempt to make sure the India Today-dail Mail paper didn't do too well) - so weird in fact that Metro Now does not have a website which works (two internet organisations with equally clueless plans). Not in the sense of paid or free, there is nothing beyond a billboard.
And you can't really have that criticism about Papermint, their website is fantastic and now registration free. Pity, EchTee's website is still irritating, given that they are in the same group and all. But, what about the paper itself? Like the size, like some of the stories and Papermint has the penchant for nice soft stories, even though the one they launched - shit on the railway tracks or something was pathetic then and it still is - it is as if these guys want to out-Express the Express. But, somehow Papermint is, as a rather famous dot-com entreprenuer who is a fan of the paper told me, 'A great way to read WSJ content for the low price of two bucks.' But when it comes to great news content, while Papermint is a not bad, it still is the 'Mint with a hole' as they might say.
However, there is also 'Lounge', Mint's saturday section, which is very interesting to read at times, not always, but definately at times it is fantastic to read. Pity that they have a sanctimonious old man who keeps on trying to tell us that the Beatles and Led Zepplin rocked. Yes, they did, but get off the pot man! Oh wait, he never did pot - as was admitted in a sanctimonious food article written sometime ago! But, it isn't just this one column in Lounge, while I like most of the columnists in Mint, some of them are truly batty and out of the planet. Anyway, these are just my thoughts on these papers, if you work here, don't take anything to heart and get offended and throw eggs at me while shouting racial obscenities, I mean what can you say, "Bong's are all pricks." Thanks but I already know that.
Back, to everybody's favourite topic on this blog, NewsX. Well, Arup Ghosh has joined them as Newsroom Head, and there have been rumours linking Karan Thapar, Vasu, Rahul Srivastava, Bhupen Chaubey and G-Ban. Strange! In other news, it appears that people have already started to dig through the channels sources of funds and in the coming days, certain nwspapers may print details of this. Keep in mind, that Peter is a British citizen, so ownership issues could be very muddled here. Comment moderation stayed enabled for the time being, though most comments do get cleared and moderation just keeps everything relatively clean.