By Girish Nikam
After the last general elections in May 2009, a hue and cry was raised in the media, by both politicians and some media persons themselves, about the pernicious phenomenon of “paid news”. Even as late as last week, during the Ramnath Goenka awards ceremony, the Indian Express which organizes these awards had a [...]
Girish Nikam
Once in a classroom of over 50 post graduate students, the discussion veered around to the issue of reservations. Being one of those private educational institutes, majority (95 percent) of the class seemed to be against the horribly unfair� system. As the discussions continued, one girl who was pretty vehement was asked what [...]
By Girish Nikam
The much awaited press conference of Prime Minister Dr.Manmohan Singh, after a five year gap, in the nations capital today, turned out to be quite a dud. Apart from him making it clear that he was in no mood to abdicate his post in hurry, and making it clear that Rahul Gandhi is [...]
By Girish Nikam
Who is Lalit Modi? It indeed sounds like a stupid question to ask, after being bombarded for days and weeks with his grinning face and twittering ways all over the media.
Indeed the media, both TV and print, which had worshipped this modern day Pied Piper for having led the entire cricketing world towards [...]
By Girish Nikam
For the last nearly a month, the name of Nira Radia has been in circulation. Two publications, Outlook and The Pioneer, raised the issue first almost simultaneously. While Outlook concentrated on the issue of phone tapping, Pioneer, referred to the larger issue of the connections between Radia and Telecom Minister A.Raja, and how [...]
By Girish Nikam
It is a coincidence that the first anniversary of the mind-numbing and the most daring terrorist strike ever witnessed in India in Bombay last year, and the leak and subsequent publication of the 17 year old inquiry into the demolition of Babri Masjid has happened around the same time.
Though some would feel [...]
By Girish Nikam
The Language chauvinists are at it again. The disgusting scenes witnessed in the Maharashtra Assembly earlier this week, has once again brought into the forefront the dangers of linguistic chauvinism. Especially in a country which has so many languages and dialects. What Raj Thackeray and his newly elected goons to the Maharashtra Assembly [...]
By Girish Nikam
A couple of weeks back when he was in the capital to attend a Congress working committee meeting, he was talking of marginalizing the regional parties and reinforcing hold of the national parties(read Congress). He was not fully satisfied with results of the recent Lok Sabha and Assembly elections in which his party [...]
By Girish Nikam
Why has the BJP got itself into, what seems like a bottomless pit? Will the internecine battle within the BJP end in a hurry? What is the real challenge the party faces? These are some of the questions which are staring at the face of the country, as the soap opera continues much [...]
By Girish Nikam
It was a night of the long knives, and by the time it ended well past midnight the Congress party was on the verge of an unexpected split. No one however seemed to be aware of it, as almost all the journalists covering the Congress Working Committee meet on that summer night of [...]
