Financial dailies across the country have spent reams of newsprint on the impact of the exceptionally low bids received for the two ultra-mega power plants as well as on the likely sale of Hutch's telecom operations and the likely suitors, from the Ambanis to Vodafone of the UK and Maxis of Malaysia. Yet, almost without exception, the regional language papers have ignored both events, not just on their front pages, but in even the business and region pages. |
The ultra-mega power bids have been on the front pages of English language dailies, even the non-financial ones, for over two weeks now. Last week, when the bids were submitted, the number of bidders itself was way above expectation. And when the bids were opened earlier this week, the exceptionally low price bid of Lanco for the Sasan project was a big surprise "" while the levellised tariff is Rs 1.19 over the life of the project, the price in the initial years is likely to be less than a rupee, a figure that is even lower than the cost of power from the government-owned NTPC which owns several fully-depreciated plants. While the power ministry has gone to town on how this heralds a new era in India's power sector and will attract even more bidders for the other ultra-mega power projects, the regional language papers, by and large, gave the news a miss. In the north, Rajasthan Patrika had a small item on page two "" what was interesting was that the headline focussed on the Tatas (since it's a bigger name) winning the Mundhra ultra-mega power plant, even though it was Lanco's bid for the other plant that made the news in the English language dailies. |
The bid for Hutch's telecom assets did not even make it to the regional language papers in either the north or the south "" the English language financial dailies, by contrast, had several stories on the fit between Bharti and Hutch, and Reliance and Hutch (the two possible Indian suitors), and whether such a takeover violated any rules and regulations. |
Instead, the north Indian papers lead with stories on Manu Sharma getting life imprisonment for the murder of Jessica Lall, the CBI court saying Railway Minister Lalu Prasad and his wife were not guilty in the disproportionate assets case, and India defeating the South African test team. Most papers carried a small item on students from Harvard University coming to hear Prasad on how he turned around the railways and some, like Dainik Bhaskar, had stories on the likely date of the wedding of actors Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachchan. In Chennai, Dinamalar had stories on the Indo-US nuclear deal and on Santhi Sounderajan who lost her Asian Games medal when she failed the gender test. |
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