In 1998, Vinod Khanna, one of our army of filmstar-politicians promised to turn Gurdaspur into Paris. Now, this was, to state the obvious, rather impossible. I mean, centuries of French culture and their habit to sulk when things don't go their way (epitomised by their President) into a place which isn't half bad and still sends most of their sons to the 'real' Paris. In 2004, I spent a few days in Paris during an extended summer break. I stayed with an old friend from school and remember going down to the Eiffel Tower like good tourists and right next to the tower I met and chatted with the guys selling overpriced trinkets who all happened to be from Gurdaspur. Well, I guess they got frustrated and left. Of course, Khanna has been moderately successful in politics much like his sons have been moderately successful in films. Unlike Govinda of course, who like any fading filmstar is blaming others for his problems - I doubt that includes his abysmal turnout in the Lok Sabha and according to the Delhi grapevine the pretty literal threats that were made to get him to show up for the nuclear vote.
But I don't know how I missed this. maybe because the 'evil' Ratan Tata stole all her thunder by releasing the Nano the very same day. But Mamata plans to make Kolkata into London! I really don't know what to say to this other than to request Mamata to pass me some of the stuff she has been smoking. I know that London is home to thousands of loony lefties and the Maoists in the southern districts of Bengal are extremely violent loony lefties, but other than that I doubt the former capital of Britain's crown jewel can match the motherland. Though that said, Dum Dum airport is a lot smoother than Heathrow, but then again it handles maybe one percent of Heathrow's traffic.
As they say, promises are promises and people can't take you to court when you don't deliver. Then again, maybe Mamata, a Ph.D (supposedly - though she makes no such claims in her 2004 affadavit) knows something about plate tectonics that hours of watching Discovery Channel and Nat Geo TV don't tell you. Maybe Kolkata is heading to London througha giant worm-hole through the Earth's crust. Anyhow, I don't see anything happening in bengal for a while, but then again, the most hare-brained scheme in Bengal right now is the Durgapur Aeropolis (which mind you, is still a promise). Because, depite everything the Commies might win a lot of seats, but weirdly enough they are the worse of two evils. The Bengal Commies that is, not the Kerala Commies, but I'm opinionating too much - so see what Great Bong makes of Didi's latest pronouncements - I, by the way, will start calling Mamata 'Mashima' - the same as I called the lady under Dhakuria flyover who used to sell some really nice weed back in the day (I was young and impressionable - so there).
PS: If you have the time, read this brilliant article by Matt Tiabbi on the financial crisis. And if you want to subscribe to this blog on a feedreader either on your mail client or Google Reader, click this link please.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Connecting the dots...
But first, kudos to the Supreme Court for standing up for 'true' secularism rather than the Muslim-pandering that typifies those like the CPI(M) who want to keep communal forces out. I mean even The Hindu editorial team disapproves. I don't condone Varun Gandhi's statements, but the fact remains that his statements have found an eerie resonance outside the 'liberal' classes. Why?
I think the Muslim minority in India is being badly let down by its leaders, voting en masse as a religious block rather than for those who want to help them progress. And the attacks, even those not inside our borders are beginning to scare people shitless. Yesterday's attack happened 12 kilometeres from our international border (and I'm scared that it isn't a question of 'if' another attack happens in India but 'when', and honestly dying for someone elses twisted political cause is not how I want to go), and when 'Too-scared to run for Election' Singh meets 'God' (a.k.a #44 Barack H.Obama) they won't be discussing the economy and outsourcing and why the Indian government should pitch in to save General Motors India (fantastic PR plant one must admit to PTI, no questions at all about how they're sinking), which is flailing about pretty much as badly as the parent company. Nope. They'll be discussing Af-Pak and the fact that India is sitting down right next to a powderkeg.
Now back to the 'dots' thing I mentioned. Remember as a kid sometimes you never followed the numbers in sequence when connecting the dots just to see what happened? Well I did. Yes, I was a twisted kid. Now, yesterday's post spoke of the editorial and marketing tie-up between Mint and CNBC-TV18. Now, and this I must clarify is complete speculation and I could be totally off the ball here, but what if this signifies the first baby steps towards Raghav Behl's acquisition of Mint?
Think about it, RB is deperate to build a print empire, his acqusition of Infomedia prove that. Many of those publications are floundering and delays in the launch of Forbes India make ET Now's delays seem ordinary. Now, RB failed with the FT India launch and Mint could well lose the WSJ tie-up because WSJ wants to launch a facsimilie in India. Now, what if, TV18 takes over Mint, obviously there will be jostling over the price and all that, but think about it for a second? See, HT Media's results will show that Mint is a bottomless money pit and despite getting rid of several high-profile, high-cost and lazy people, Mint still bleeds far too much money. Worse still, while Mint does fantastic features, as a 'News'paper it is falling further and further behind. RB buys Mint, HT Media manages to make some money or at least save face, RB can position CNBC's agenda and the FT content into Mint which has a ready-made brand. Win-win for everybody.
Just my two paise here, and I could be skipping far too many dots, but I have been thinking about this possibility. Anyway, I have a lot of work over the coming few days, so there might be fewer posts than usual. Have a great week, and did anyone catch the Australian Grand Prix, what a race!
I think the Muslim minority in India is being badly let down by its leaders, voting en masse as a religious block rather than for those who want to help them progress. And the attacks, even those not inside our borders are beginning to scare people shitless. Yesterday's attack happened 12 kilometeres from our international border (and I'm scared that it isn't a question of 'if' another attack happens in India but 'when', and honestly dying for someone elses twisted political cause is not how I want to go), and when 'Too-scared to run for Election' Singh meets 'God' (a.k.a #44 Barack H.Obama) they won't be discussing the economy and outsourcing and why the Indian government should pitch in to save General Motors India (fantastic PR plant one must admit to PTI, no questions at all about how they're sinking), which is flailing about pretty much as badly as the parent company. Nope. They'll be discussing Af-Pak and the fact that India is sitting down right next to a powderkeg.
Now back to the 'dots' thing I mentioned. Remember as a kid sometimes you never followed the numbers in sequence when connecting the dots just to see what happened? Well I did. Yes, I was a twisted kid. Now, yesterday's post spoke of the editorial and marketing tie-up between Mint and CNBC-TV18. Now, and this I must clarify is complete speculation and I could be totally off the ball here, but what if this signifies the first baby steps towards Raghav Behl's acquisition of Mint?
Think about it, RB is deperate to build a print empire, his acqusition of Infomedia prove that. Many of those publications are floundering and delays in the launch of Forbes India make ET Now's delays seem ordinary. Now, RB failed with the FT India launch and Mint could well lose the WSJ tie-up because WSJ wants to launch a facsimilie in India. Now, what if, TV18 takes over Mint, obviously there will be jostling over the price and all that, but think about it for a second? See, HT Media's results will show that Mint is a bottomless money pit and despite getting rid of several high-profile, high-cost and lazy people, Mint still bleeds far too much money. Worse still, while Mint does fantastic features, as a 'News'paper it is falling further and further behind. RB buys Mint, HT Media manages to make some money or at least save face, RB can position CNBC's agenda and the FT content into Mint which has a ready-made brand. Win-win for everybody.
Just my two paise here, and I could be skipping far too many dots, but I have been thinking about this possibility. Anyway, I have a lot of work over the coming few days, so there might be fewer posts than usual. Have a great week, and did anyone catch the Australian Grand Prix, what a race!
Monday, March 30, 2009
Interesting
This news item seems interesting, in fact it is really quite interesting given dynamics in business television and dailies with the entry of ET Now in a few weeks (months?). While the valuation demands are a bit on the insane side, The Economic Times still breaks a lot of stories and ET Now will be seen as major competition to CNBC-TV18.
At the end of the day, according to ratings, and ratings do matter no matter what people say about 'prestige' and all, Times Now is the leading English news channel in India. They have in a few years pretty much overhauled more established channels with more experienced reporters. That is not to say that there are no issues there, but they've done it and one reason was that CNN-IBN and NDTV concentrated far too much on each other allowing these guys to quietly storm past. Now, with CNBC-TV18 taking ET Now's threat a lot more seriously and the fact that when it coimes to 'first' at least with post-result interviews, CNBC is a tough act to beat, it should be interesting. The only problem is the timing and the slippage of the launch date.
The tie-up also will serve Mint in good stead hopefully given that their news reportage has been slipping of late, in fact in certain beats they seem to be almost non-existant. I do not know what an 'editorial and marketing' deal entails, but given CNN-IBN's and Hindustan Times' closeness (the two organisations constantly co-operate on things like 'Indian of the Year', all sorts of Polls - expect a pro-Congress opinion poll shortly, and I don't know that there is a poll but if there is it has to be pro-Congress) this deal is not surprising. It seems the best way to deal with the Times of India Group behemoth is to tie-up. Or let the giant trip itself up, which it seems the rather controversial Private Treaties organisation seems to have done. After all the hullaballo of a year ago, the silence now speaks volumes.
At the end of the day, according to ratings, and ratings do matter no matter what people say about 'prestige' and all, Times Now is the leading English news channel in India. They have in a few years pretty much overhauled more established channels with more experienced reporters. That is not to say that there are no issues there, but they've done it and one reason was that CNN-IBN and NDTV concentrated far too much on each other allowing these guys to quietly storm past. Now, with CNBC-TV18 taking ET Now's threat a lot more seriously and the fact that when it coimes to 'first' at least with post-result interviews, CNBC is a tough act to beat, it should be interesting. The only problem is the timing and the slippage of the launch date.
The tie-up also will serve Mint in good stead hopefully given that their news reportage has been slipping of late, in fact in certain beats they seem to be almost non-existant. I do not know what an 'editorial and marketing' deal entails, but given CNN-IBN's and Hindustan Times' closeness (the two organisations constantly co-operate on things like 'Indian of the Year', all sorts of Polls - expect a pro-Congress opinion poll shortly, and I don't know that there is a poll but if there is it has to be pro-Congress) this deal is not surprising. It seems the best way to deal with the Times of India Group behemoth is to tie-up. Or let the giant trip itself up, which it seems the rather controversial Private Treaties organisation seems to have done. After all the hullaballo of a year ago, the silence now speaks volumes.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Hmmmm...
You know watching qualifying got me thinking, sometimes the old geezers can just rise to the top of the pile thanks to a helpful last minute intervention. Of copurse, that does not signify anything either about Indian politics - because we aren't quite sure which old geezer we're talking about at any given point of time - the weak-hearted debate avoider or 'that one' who people still blame for bringing down a defunct archeological monument (the Wiki entry has apparently been written by people who love Mail Today). Talking about debate avoidance, Anand Sharma's quip that there is 'no tradition' of televised debates is classic Congress spin, there is no history because we have just about become a televised nation. But of course, just about everything uis spin. Which is why once the IPL gets underway I will be spared of spin. I have a choice between Ajay Maken and Vijay Goel in the New Delhi constituency and will probably see what either of them has to offer me. At the end of the day, the one who gets more people in the slums drunk will win, but then again there is a long time to go before I get to vote. I wonder if the local telly channels will broadcast a debate between the two candidates for India's 'most powerful' constituency.
PS: The pictures of Advani on the BJP posters is really bizzare, I'm sure the BJP could have used a better photographer.
PPS: Talking about the media, the leak of Times' TV projections makes me wonder if people are still drinking crazy juice out there. Many of the ventures over the past few years are flailing about unable to draw in revenues, yet the craziness persists.
PS: The pictures of Advani on the BJP posters is really bizzare, I'm sure the BJP could have used a better photographer.
PPS: Talking about the media, the leak of Times' TV projections makes me wonder if people are still drinking crazy juice out there. Many of the ventures over the past few years are flailing about unable to draw in revenues, yet the craziness persists.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Here comes F1!
After reading the reports coming from Albert Park in Melbourne it appears that the Ferrari-McLaren-BMW troika might be whacked by the smaller teams, including one that really didn't know that would take part until a few weeks ago. I know this post has nothing to do with the media but I've been watching Formula 1 since 1995 when Star Sports started airing it and I really do love it. I have a new new big-ass LCD telly, and I've bought a few cases of Carlsberg (and I know that means that I am indirectly funding Rafa Benitez' attempt to buy David Villa - I'm on a sports trip right now, aren't I?) to begin the season. Good fun coming up!
PS: Discovered that Mail Today has a print run of 1.32 lakh, quite impressive numbers for a paper that is a couple of years old!
PS: Discovered that Mail Today has a print run of 1.32 lakh, quite impressive numbers for a paper that is a couple of years old!
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Media Layoff Watch
The silent layoffs are over, the big boys have begun laying off employees. In the hundreds. Last night UndieTV laid off 114 people - mostly from the defunct MetroNation Delhi channel (that said, their tie-up with the Kasturi's for MetroNation Chennai goes on apace) but there were some lay-offs from 24x7 and India as well. At Times Of India, following the depressing 30 per cent pay cuts which has several employees rather pissed off (whenever I meet a Times reporter at a Presser all they can do is bitch out their employer - so much for employee satisfaction) they have also been layoffs - 87 people across the country have been let go. Of course, there are still lack of mad people at Times though, because according to this post they want to sell a stake in their Broadcast operation valuing at $200 million. Which is a lot more than the other, much larger networks, are worth. Just to see Arnab screaming and shouting and being put in his place by various Pakistani journalists.
This is the start of the high profile editorial lay-offs, hudreds of people in ad sales and marketing functions across channels have been laid off over the past few months as well. If you have any news about lay-offs or were laid-off yourself email me at presstalk (at) gmail (dot) com or just leave a comment. That said, I will not publish libellous or derogatory comments. If you feel treated unfairly, you are a journalist so you should be able to put it into words properly.
This is the start of the high profile editorial lay-offs, hudreds of people in ad sales and marketing functions across channels have been laid off over the past few months as well. If you have any news about lay-offs or were laid-off yourself email me at presstalk (at) gmail (dot) com or just leave a comment. That said, I will not publish libellous or derogatory comments. If you feel treated unfairly, you are a journalist so you should be able to put it into words properly.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Random IPL Rant
Just thought that I would climb on the IPL bandwagon as well. You know, it is the same crazy logic I had when I started smoking - everyone is doing it! By the way, if Ramadoss freaked out about smoking in movies (particularly SRK in Devdas), I wonder what he would say about Abhay Deol's extreme substance abuse in Dev. D? Smoke for thought...
Here is the funny thing, I never thought that the news channels would give the IPL so much support. When Chidambaram started his disasterous attempt to dovetail the Gujarat riots into the IPL yesterday he got a lot of flak from journalists.
And the flak seems to have been counter-productive, Arun Jaitley who was for several days behaving like a petulant schoolboy stirred. You can say a lot of things about Jaitley, but not about cricket. Despite the chaos that rules the DDCA – Delhi today has three permanent members of the Test team and when Virat Kohli makes it there, which hopefully should be sooner rather than later given the kid’s stunning form this domestic season – Delhi players will dominate the Indian team.
Not a Bombay-esque domination that happened in the 60’s and 70’s and that started the quota system, but domination nonetheless. And Jaitley has had a role to play, maybe not training wise but definitely a political role in getting these Delhi boys into the team (and Sehwag and Gambhir have spoken about this in the past, Sehwag even got married at Jaitley's house - love him or hate him, without Jaitley India might not have the best opening partnership in the world right now), and as events of the past few weeks have brought out in the spotlight, cricket is political. Very political and it has been like that since Jagmohan Dalmiya came into the picture. As are other Indian sports, but that is another story. But to be fair, the increased politicisation of cricket has happily coinciced with the team doing a hell of a lot better but still.
Back to my convoluted logic on how the television channels dug their own grave supporting the IPL and making Chiddu look like a vindictive man, which he is, but that is a moot point. See, this is going to be a bad year for companies. We can all delude ourselves and pretend that things are going to improve soon or we could also delude ourselves into thinking that the bottom has fallen out. The only people journalists have actually succeeded in convincing that things are horrible are the guys who employ them and they have promptly cut salaries. In certain cases the owners were broke and in certain cases, not so broke (maybe even profitable) but the salary cuts might be hiding a deeper malaise which happened thanks to the shares for adverts business and the requirement to maintain a debt to equity ratio.
Now, as we all know the media in India is free. ‘Real’ prices of newspapers haven’t risen in years, almost all the money you pay to your newspaper-wallah goes to him. Now the same applies to telly channels. You don’t pay UndieTV for the privilege of watching them, heck people refuse to pay UndieTV for the privilege of watching their trying to be Good Times channel, which nowadays feels like watching a person in complete denial. Anyway, companies aren’t doing well. Usually because their managers screwed up and money laundering operations went awry because the bottom fell out of the Dubai Real Estate market as well. So that means smaller advertising budgets.
The no IPL brigade championed by Chiddu would have meant guys with ad budgets sanctioned would have been left with nowhere to advertise. Other than the news channels. Which would have meant that instead of a sponsored sixer or wicket, things like ‘This tantrum of Arnab is brought to you by XXXX or ‘This display of fake emotion by Barkha is sponsored by YYYY’. I mean we could have had something like that. Of course, both the people mentioned above don’t have a sense of humour, which is why they’ve been mentioned, but you get my point.
Now despite the IPL happening in South Africa, which will mean I will try my frikkin’ darndest to go snag an air ticket to watch some matches at least, the TV times remain the same. So we will not have to watch hysterical screaming, random editorialising or worst of all a litany of wrong facts every evening. Nope, I can watch Sehwag and Gambhir whack the ball every few days. Pity, I really did hope to watch a few games at Kotla.
But then again, as much as we love politics, we just love cricket more.
Here is the funny thing, I never thought that the news channels would give the IPL so much support. When Chidambaram started his disasterous attempt to dovetail the Gujarat riots into the IPL yesterday he got a lot of flak from journalists.
And the flak seems to have been counter-productive, Arun Jaitley who was for several days behaving like a petulant schoolboy stirred. You can say a lot of things about Jaitley, but not about cricket. Despite the chaos that rules the DDCA – Delhi today has three permanent members of the Test team and when Virat Kohli makes it there, which hopefully should be sooner rather than later given the kid’s stunning form this domestic season – Delhi players will dominate the Indian team.
Not a Bombay-esque domination that happened in the 60’s and 70’s and that started the quota system, but domination nonetheless. And Jaitley has had a role to play, maybe not training wise but definitely a political role in getting these Delhi boys into the team (and Sehwag and Gambhir have spoken about this in the past, Sehwag even got married at Jaitley's house - love him or hate him, without Jaitley India might not have the best opening partnership in the world right now), and as events of the past few weeks have brought out in the spotlight, cricket is political. Very political and it has been like that since Jagmohan Dalmiya came into the picture. As are other Indian sports, but that is another story. But to be fair, the increased politicisation of cricket has happily coinciced with the team doing a hell of a lot better but still.
Back to my convoluted logic on how the television channels dug their own grave supporting the IPL and making Chiddu look like a vindictive man, which he is, but that is a moot point. See, this is going to be a bad year for companies. We can all delude ourselves and pretend that things are going to improve soon or we could also delude ourselves into thinking that the bottom has fallen out. The only people journalists have actually succeeded in convincing that things are horrible are the guys who employ them and they have promptly cut salaries. In certain cases the owners were broke and in certain cases, not so broke (maybe even profitable) but the salary cuts might be hiding a deeper malaise which happened thanks to the shares for adverts business and the requirement to maintain a debt to equity ratio.
Now, as we all know the media in India is free. ‘Real’ prices of newspapers haven’t risen in years, almost all the money you pay to your newspaper-wallah goes to him. Now the same applies to telly channels. You don’t pay UndieTV for the privilege of watching them, heck people refuse to pay UndieTV for the privilege of watching their trying to be Good Times channel, which nowadays feels like watching a person in complete denial. Anyway, companies aren’t doing well. Usually because their managers screwed up and money laundering operations went awry because the bottom fell out of the Dubai Real Estate market as well. So that means smaller advertising budgets.
The no IPL brigade championed by Chiddu would have meant guys with ad budgets sanctioned would have been left with nowhere to advertise. Other than the news channels. Which would have meant that instead of a sponsored sixer or wicket, things like ‘This tantrum of Arnab is brought to you by XXXX or ‘This display of fake emotion by Barkha is sponsored by YYYY’. I mean we could have had something like that. Of course, both the people mentioned above don’t have a sense of humour, which is why they’ve been mentioned, but you get my point.
Now despite the IPL happening in South Africa, which will mean I will try my frikkin’ darndest to go snag an air ticket to watch some matches at least, the TV times remain the same. So we will not have to watch hysterical screaming, random editorialising or worst of all a litany of wrong facts every evening. Nope, I can watch Sehwag and Gambhir whack the ball every few days. Pity, I really did hope to watch a few games at Kotla.
But then again, as much as we love politics, we just love cricket more.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Hmmm...
I was just watching Times Now, rather listening to Rahul Shivshankar screaming something about Kasab. And then he dropped a bombshell. He claimed that Priyanka Gandhi talking about Varun Gandhi's stupidity was the first inside the Gandhi family. Really? I am not quite that old, but because I was born into a political (journalist) household, I do remember that Arun Nehru and Rajiv Gandhi didn't quite get along. I mean, I remember snatches of the two men openly fighting. And they were cousins too. Nehru-Gandhi cousins, but same family right?
But this is Times Now's version of events, you know after the live broadcasts of commando's storming buildings we now figure out that they don't quite know history. maybe because screaming at researchers and chasing them away isn't a good thing, but at least they'll get some decent people from outside to do their election coverage. I'm losing interest in HT's plot to bore me out of my skull by sending an army of mainly novices all over the place. You know, the times when the older guys write, despite their biases, it somehow shines through.
But this is Times Now's version of events, you know after the live broadcasts of commando's storming buildings we now figure out that they don't quite know history. maybe because screaming at researchers and chasing them away isn't a good thing, but at least they'll get some decent people from outside to do their election coverage. I'm losing interest in HT's plot to bore me out of my skull by sending an army of mainly novices all over the place. You know, the times when the older guys write, despite their biases, it somehow shines through.
Take a gun to my head
And pull the trigger. Between the politicisation of the IPL and the cricketisation of politics I feel generally underwhelmed. There is a lot of not so good real news going on across the world, real news other than Jade Goody's death. Flimsy excuses are being used to cut back on staff and salary cuts are really starting to hurt the little guys in the media. Things are getting so bad, that it seems whenever I end up at a gathering of journalists, young and old all talk about how horrible times are. And when things start going wrong, the amount of fingers that start being pointed are not funny - "I'm not useless, he is", or in certain places, "S/he is more useless than me" The sudden acrimony is leading to some fairly interesting plots all over the place. Will keep you posted on more and I promise to be more regular this week.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Real India
My point about 'Real India' is not that a cowshed in Amethi is not 'Real India'. No, it is quite real and quite India. My point is that Rahul-baba a la Sarah Palin's comments about 'real America' is missing the point. Rural folk might outnumber us by a factor of two to one, India is still an overwhelmingly rural country, though, the latest delimitation for the Lok Sabha does acknowledge the rise of urban areas.
My point is simple, there is no 'unreal' India - everything from the cocaine dens of South Bombay to the cowsheds in Amethi or elsewhere are quite real. I've seen reality, in fact I might have seen more reality than most urban, English journalists. My trip to Vidarbha is still one I can't quite forget, that was a particularly hard story, not as a story but dealing with the fact that what is going on is quite different from the perception that even we in the media pass on. It wasn't easy to deal with reality head-on, which is why I guess in India we like the fantasy that Bollywood and cricket delivers. But then again, that fantasy is also part of the real India.
PS: The Press Trust of India does an easy way of syndication of foreign news - essentially copy an article, give it some credit though. That said, isn't that what most foreign correpondents do? In fact, Chiddu and Saibal in ToI and Sutirtho in HT are leagues ahead of the usual crowd. The Hindu carries a lot of international news but sometimes making head or tails of what they're saying through their red-tinted glasses is nearly impossible. My two paise only, no wait my two rupees only, haven't seen a smaller denomination coin outside calcutta for a while.
My point is simple, there is no 'unreal' India - everything from the cocaine dens of South Bombay to the cowsheds in Amethi or elsewhere are quite real. I've seen reality, in fact I might have seen more reality than most urban, English journalists. My trip to Vidarbha is still one I can't quite forget, that was a particularly hard story, not as a story but dealing with the fact that what is going on is quite different from the perception that even we in the media pass on. It wasn't easy to deal with reality head-on, which is why I guess in India we like the fantasy that Bollywood and cricket delivers. But then again, that fantasy is also part of the real India.
PS: The Press Trust of India does an easy way of syndication of foreign news - essentially copy an article, give it some credit though. That said, isn't that what most foreign correpondents do? In fact, Chiddu and Saibal in ToI and Sutirtho in HT are leagues ahead of the usual crowd. The Hindu carries a lot of international news but sometimes making head or tails of what they're saying through their red-tinted glasses is nearly impossible. My two paise only, no wait my two rupees only, haven't seen a smaller denomination coin outside calcutta for a while.
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