President, not IIP

REGIONAL ROUNDUP

The blazing growth in industrial production, as attested by figures unveiled by the Central Statistical Organisation, received little to no coverage in the regional press.

The issue that dominated the Hindi press over the past week was the political parleys within the UPA over the choice of the next Presidential candidate. Dainik Jagran is running a series titled Kaun Banega Rashtrapati, which follows the daily goings-on in New Delhi. In its June 12 edition, the paper reported on Sonia Gandhi's presence at Railway Minister Lalu Prasad's birthday celebrations and then dinner at UP Chief Minister Mayawati's residence as indicative of a greater momentum towards the acceptance of a UPA candidate for Presidency""Rajasthan governor Pratibha Patil is the new surprise UPA choice. Punjab Kesari, in its June 14 edition, reported on the meeting of the BJP core group which was held to finalise Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat's name as the NDA's candidate.

An edit in Dainik Bhaskar analysed the Congress' desperation to get its candidate to Raisina Hill. "The President who takes over now will be responsible for inviting the leader of the largest party after the 2009 Parliamentary polls, and the Congress does not want a President who is inimical to the idea of proposing Prime Ministership to the leader-in-waiting," the edit said, in a reference to Rahul Gandhi.

Among the business news that was covered in the Hindi press was the 40 per cent reduction in Speed Post fares, DLF's IPO and Bharti's retail foray.

The industrial production figures did not receive much attention on the front pages of the Kannada press either. They were carried in the business sections of the newspapers. Local issues dominated the front pages of all the newspapers. Prominent among them was the land encroachment by VVIPs in and around Bangalore, unearthed by a special committee headed by ruling party (JD-S) legislator A T Ramaswamy. The committee named relatives of some of the top government officials and politicians as encroachers. All the newspapers reported this extensively. Another issue that received coverage was the unpredictability of the monsoons. Though the monsoons have set in, the raining pattern has become erratic causing a lot of anxiety among the farming community.

The survey report on the latest industry production figures received average coverage from the Telugu press, with the news ending up as two- and four-column stories on the business pages of Vaartha and Andhra Jyothi, respectively. The issue, however, did not find mention in Andhra Pradesh's leading newspaper, Eenadu. The slowdown in coal, cement and steel production growth rates affecting infrastructure development, received meagre coverage in the Telugu press, with the news ending up as a two-column story on Vaartha's business page.

On Thursday, Eenadu carried a lead story questioning the 'open-handed attitude' of the state government in allotting 10,670 acres of land at Rs 18,500 per acre to Brahmani's steel plant at Kadapa. "The government is also in the process of allotting 3,179 acres more to the steel plant," the daily said in an exclusive page one story the next day.

Christian evangelist K A Paul's charges against Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy was the lead story in all the three newspapers on Friday. The next day, while Eenadu carried a story on the government conducting inspections at Paul's Charity City at Sangareddy on its inside page, Vaartha's lead story was on Paul's alleged misdeeds.