NTC's a local issue

REGIONAL ROUNDUP

With the exception of the Marathi press, most other non-English language dailies chose to ignore/ downplay the news of the Mumbai High Court ruling striking down the sale of National Textile Corporation (NTC) mill land in the city.

Naturally, none had any editorial analysis on the pros and cons of the development. In the event, a judgement which has major ramifications, both in terms of environment/ecological matters as well as the future development of industry, was ignored by most.

While the coverage of English media was more or less neutral and gave more importance to the business and environmental angle, the local Marathi Press welcomed the high court's decision with open arms and described it as a slap on the face of the government and the greedy builder lobby.

A prominent Marathi newspaper, Loksatta, in a hard-hitting editorial said it was a first step to break the unholy nexus among the builders, politicians, bureaucrats, police and the underworld. It drew a parallel between Mumbai and Chicago and described how Chicago was once ruled by the mafia, corrupt politicians and bureaucrats. The paper expressed hope that like Chicago, Mumbai would also successfully get rid of this unholy alliance.

Another largely circulated Marathi newspaper, Maharashtra Times, said the judgment would have political repercussions. It held state Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh squarely responsible for the decision as he was also the minister for urban development. Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar's statement (on the judgement) that, "a time has come to demarcate the boundaries of judiciary and executive" was also widely reported by the Marathi newspapers, unlike their English-language counterparts, who chose to ignore it.

The ruling of the High Court setting aside the sale of 600 acre of surplus textile mill land by National Textile Corporation in prime locations did not interest Kannada newspapers. While Prajavani and Kannada Prabha carried the news of the court ruling in their inside pages on Tuesday, Vijaya Karnataka did not even bother to carry the news.

Prajavani carried the news in a three column box on the op-ed page on Tuesday, Kannada Prabha carried a double column story on their national news page. None of these papers bothered to carry any analysis nor editorial on the issue.

The Kannada newspapers were more busy in carrying news stories on the first death anniversary of forest brigand Veerappan and statements by former Karnataka Chief Minister and Governor of Maharashtra S M Krishna on corruption in the state.

Tamil daily Dina Malar had nothing on the decision of the Bombay High Court to set aside the sale of NTC mill land. In the north, most mainline Hindi language newspapers ignored the event while the Dainik Jagran had a small item on the business page on the day of the judgement.

The item had a box that said the court had ruled that the sale violated various regulations and that, as a result of this, land worth Rs 5,500 crore was now stuck in a limbo.

Other Hindi newspapers like Punjab Kesri and Rajasthan Patrika that have a more regional focus paid even less attention to the development in Mumbai.