Voting for elections and cricket

VERNACULAR VIEWS

North: Gimmicky front pages aren't limited to some English dailies, it seems; Dainik Bhaskar can do the same. The lead story, branded "Monday mega story" on A Q Khan showed him lying on a bed of missiles (like Bhishmapitamah in the Mahabharata) with an angry briefs-clad Musharraf wearing a stars-and-stripes scarf breathing down at him.

One story on the Pakistan tour had a bat and a ball followed by "se war, border paar" (war with the bat and the ball across the border), and another had the headline "Third umpire ne diya green signal" , with a morphed image of Vajpayee and Advani offering aarti to Sachin and Saurav dressed as Ram and Laxman.

Stories like Sonia Gandhi saying she doesn't give too much importance to becoming the prime minister, the death of six people at Sriharikota, the Chief Justice saying corruption in the lower judiciary has become a problem, were the same as in the English dailies.

Bhaskar also had an anchor on how a music video was shot with a court as a backdrop, and showed the judge drinking liquor and watching half-naked women dancing! The judge declares "Aaj kanoon mein rasam bana di jaye, jo na piye use sazaa di jaye" (let's make a law stating that those who don't drink should be punished). The story didn't say what action the government took.

East: Bangla newspapers have their own news display priorities. The Indian cricket team's tour of Pakistan was among the top items that figured consistently on the front pages of almost all newspapers. Aajkaal ran prominently the story on Atal Bihari Vajpayee exhorting the Indian cricket team to win all its matches.

Ananda Bazar Patrika made Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani's meeting with Sourav Ganguly and his team at Lucknow, the flyer lead. The phrases used to describe the Indo-Pak cricket tour show how Bangla newspapers are deliberately whipping up jingoistic sentiments. For example, the Indian cricket team is now being hailed as "Sourav's vahini" (Sourav's army).

Ananda Bazar Patrika ran another lead on the absence of the West Bengal Chief Minister, Buddhadev Bhattacharya at the wedding of Sahara chief Subroto Roy's two sons at Lucknow last week. The report mentioned how Roy was aggrieved by Bhattacharya's decision to decline the invitation and how he was reviewing all his investment plans in Bengal.

The total 24-hour strike by trade unions in Bengal paralysed economic activities in the state. Even the call centres and BPO units could not function on Tuesday.

Bartaman assessed the total loss from the strike at Rs 400 crore. All Bangla newspapers ran critical stories on how the state government turned a blind eye to the inconvenience caused from the strike.

West: The regional newspapers Sakal, Loksatta, Maharashtra Times and Lokmath dwelt upon political issues with the hot topic of the fortnight being the entry of Varun Gandhi and

D P Yadav into the BJP. Ample space was also accorded to individual development schemes (read financial aid packages) announced by the Maharashtra government for Marathwada, Vidharbha, Khandesh, and drought-hit and hilly regions.

The seat sharing agreement reached between the Shiv Sena and the BJP for Maharashtra's 48 seats, and the continuing parleys between the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party for the Lok Sabha elections also made news.

Former Deputy Chief Minister Chaggan Bhujbal and his nephew being summoned by the special investigation team (SIT) probing the fake stamps and stamp paper racket also provided a sideshow of sorts in the language media.

South: The Telugu Desam Party's (TDP's) mammoth rally and public meeting "Vijayabheri" took centrestage in Andhra dailies. Eenadu and Vaartha reported the elaborate arrangements made for the "Vijayabheri", and the statements of the party's upper echelons on the implausible figure of 35 to 50 lakh party workers slated to attend the meeting.

When the much-hyped meeting was held on February 22, Eenadu and Vaartha splashed a half-page colour picture across their front pages of the "yellow tidal wave" that swamped the twin cities.

While Eenadu gave prominence to Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu's emotional speech requesting the public to elect and return the TDP to power, Vaartha highlighted Naidu's comments on Sonia Gandhi's foreign origin and Telangana Rastra Samithi (TRS) President K Chandrasekhara Rao (KCR).

In one of the most unabashed political attacks in recent times, KCR hurled vile abuse at the chief minister and his ministers in full view of cameras and journalists on February 23. "Naidu's rule is fake and vulgar; he is a lying debauchee; he has a beggar-like face and an ugly personality...." Eenadu and Vaartha confined this political solecism to their inner pages.

Two years after upcoming Telugu film actress Pratyusha consumed poison, her boyfriend G Siddhartha Reddy and a friend from college were sentenced to five years' rigorous imprisonment for abetting her death.

Both newspapers gave front-page coverage to the story. Sahara chief Subrato Roy's sons' weddings and Indian cricketer V V S Laxman's engagement to Sailaja also made headlines.