Babu salaries is the issue

REGIONAL ROUNDUP

Not surprisingly, most newspapers in the country, in the English language as well as the non-English language focussed on the impending Pay Commission when it came to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's press conference on Wednesday. Unlike some of the pink papers, though, few non-English language newspapers focussed on the cost of this "" upwards of Rs 10,000 crore annually for the Centre alone, and which nearly single-handedly destroyed the finances of most state governments for several years, the last time around.

In the north, both Rajasthan Patrika and Punjab Kesari led with this on page one, and both had boxes or related stories on the press conference with choicy quotes from the press conference highlighted "" such as the one which said that (the PM) saw no problem if governors played an active role in politics. Newspapers highlighted the PM's new sense of assurance and his ability to make cracks at the opposition. Hindi-language newspapers, however, did not highlight his cracks at BJP leader LK Advani in the same manner as the English-language ones did "" in response to a question about him being the weakest prime minister the country had seen, the PM retorted that there was no point going by what Advani said and that, in any case, how was Advani seen as a strong man when he had to resign after the RSS objected to him calling Muhammad Ali Jinnah secular.

In the Marathi press, Sakal covered the press conference the most extensively. While Sakal carried the story of Manmohan Singh saying Sonia Gandhi was a source of strength on it's front page, Loksatta and Maharashtra Times carried the PM's announcement of the formation of 6th Pay Commission. Sakal also carried the PM's sarcastic remark that, "one can have choice while choosing the friends but not neighbours", a reply to the Pakistan's President General Pravez Mushraff's provocative statement that, "India is an enemy nation", on it's front page. In the inside pages, Sakal carried separate stories about PM's evasive replies on the issue of Bofors and US Ambassador David Mulford's controversial remark on the Indo-US nuclear deal. While Maharashtra Times carried the story of the PM's assurance that there would no hike in the taxes, in the inside pages, Loksatta carried no separate story about PM's press conference on it's inside pages.

The three Kannada newspapers "" Kannada Prabha, Praja Vani and Vijaya Karnataka "" also chose to highlight the Pay Commission announcement. Praja Vani and Vijaya Karnataka has this copy on the front page, while Kannada Prabha had a two-column story in the inside pages.

Tamil daily Dinamalar carried three big photographs (with different facial expressions) of the prime minister addressing the press conference, on the front page. It carried a single-column report (stretching over half a page vertically) on the PM announcing the formation of the 6th Pay Commission soon. The daily also dedicated one full page (inside) to the prime minister's press conference. The page carried seven reports, ranging between single and four columns.