News

The trouble with the future is that it never arrives–or by the time it does, we fail to recognize it as such. The Internet is one such creature of the future that now fails to impress. Had you told me 15 years ago that by 2004 I could retrieve any one of 13 billion pages of free content–newspapers, all the great books, dictionaries, encyclopedias, catalogs, weather reports, political writings...

The pattern emerges, strong and sharp. Hindustan Times is vigourously appealing to the youth. And to that end, starting today, the Delhi-based publishing group has rolled out a new newspaper - Hindustan Times NEXT - targeted purely at readers in the mid-teens and early twenties (essentially, late schoolers, college students and non-working adults). "Hindustan Times NEXT would be radically...

Journalists have been making history. In big, fat volumes. It’s getting harder and harder these days to tell the difference between books of history and books of journalism. Dozens of current or former journalists – like David Halberstam, Anne Applebaum, David Maraniss, Melissa Fay Greene, Richard Kluger, Stanley Karnow, and Robert Caro – have been writing meaty books about events they may not...

In a 29 April 2004 letter to Indian Prime Minister Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the IFJ expressed deep concern over the death of freelance journalist Asiya Jeelani and the injuring of Khurram Parvez and Kumar Bharti. On 20 April, Asiya Jeelani, a freelance journalist, was killed in a mine explosion in India-controlled Kashmir, while working with the Coalition of Civil society to prepare a report on...

Asiya Jeelani died en route to the hospital after the van she was traveling in, which was being used by an elections monitoring team sent by a local umbrella organization, the Coalition of Civil Society, detonated an explosive device on a rural road in northern Kashmir. Jeelani was a freelance journalist who frequently contributed to local newspapers. According to local sources, she was helping...

The sheer flood of news channels on Indian television prompts one to speculate whether there is scope for any more players in the news broadcast space. Popular news anchor and broadcaster Rajat Sharma, who recently threw his hat into the ring by launching news channel India TV, thinks there is. "Though there is no space for just another news channel, there is certainly a market for a responsible...

The publishers are splashing optimistic colours on the canvas of niche magazine space. Cementing this fact is that large publishing houses and corporates alike are all eyeing this space in a big way. The launches of special interest magazines are tailored to fit the needs and desires of varied segments of the literate society. Infomedia India, the erstwhile Tata Infomedia from the Tata Group...

While the world's largest democracy is in the midst of elections, there are 72 other nations around the world that have already hit or would soon be hitting the election trail this year. In fact, 2004 can easily be called the Year of the Elections. While Indian news and current affairs channels have already come up with innovative ways of keeping viewers glued to television sets during the Lok...

The tremor of battle between Hindustan Times and The Times of India will soon be felt in Mumbai too. Hindustan Times is marching towards the nation's commercial capital with carefully calibrated strategic plans that would undoubtedly have a long-term effect in both the Mumbai and Delhi markets. Preparations for the much-anticipated clash have already begun at Hindustan Times, in fact. While the...

It's been a topic that has elicited a fair amount of discussion in publishing circles for a while now, but the Times Group had been characteristically tightlipped about it. Now, finally, the Indian media conglomerate has officially announced its 50:50 JV partnership with electronic media giant British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), which has a considerable stake in the publishing business as well...