oppn parties Turning the Front Page into Page 3

News Snippets

  • Supreme Court questions the continuing relevance of two-child norms. The Court observed that falling fertility rates have weakened the population-control rationale behind laws disqualifying people with more than two children from contesting local body elections. It referred the issue to a larger Bench for consideration
  • Supreme Court declines to shift Tirupati laddu case outside Andhra Pradesh. The Court rejected a plea seeking transfer of the trial, despite arguments that political statements by Andhra Pradesh's Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister could affect the fairness of proceedings
  • Supreme Court transfers Azam Khan's fresh ED bail plea to Allahabad High Court. The apex court declined to consider the Samajwadi Party leader's bail request in a fresh Enforcement Directorate case and directed that it be listed before a division Bench of the High Court on November 16
  • Two killed in Delhi building collapse; contractor booked. Two bodies were recovered after a building collapsed in Chawri Bazaar. Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta said the contractor had been booked and the concerned junior and assistant engineers suspended
  • Uttar Pradesh voter rolls show a 2.4-crore discrepancy. A difference of approximately 2.4 crore names has been reported between the state's panchayat and rural Assembly voter lists. The Election Commission has ordered the two sets of rolls to be matched
  • Gujarat announces 3% dearness allowance hike. The state government announced a three-percentage-point increase in dearness allowance for government employees and pensioners ahead of Diwali
  • Sensex and Nifty post their strongest single-day gains in months. The Sensex surged 2,008.61 points, or 2.60%, to close at 79,310.01, while the Nifty 50 climbed 576 points, or 2.40%, to 24,536.60. Financial and automobile stocks led the rally, supported by falling crude prices and renewed foreign investor buying
  • Maaya Rajeshwaran reaches WTA-level quarter-final. The 17-year-old Indian defeated Poland's Weronika Falkowska 6-4, 6-3, becoming the first Indian woman since Sania Mirza in 2012 to reach a quarter-final at a WTA Tour-level singles event
  • Tanvi Patri reaches Youth Olympics badminton final. The 15-year-old defeated Japan's Yuzuno Watanabe in the semi-final, assuring India of a medal and becoming the first Indian badminton player to reach the girls' singles final at the Youth Olympics
  • India beat Pakistan 3-2 in SAFF Championship. India defeated Pakistan in a closely contested match, having led 3-0 before conceding two late goals. The victory was reported as a significant result for India's second-string side
  • India beat Japan 4-1 to win a record sixth Asian Champions Trophy. India recovered from an early deficit to defeat Japan in the final at Mohali, extending its record as the tournament's most successful men's team
  • The Supreme Court issued notice to the Centre and the Election Commission on a petition challenging Section 16 of the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners Act, 2023, which grants the CEC and Election Commissioners protection from legal proceedings for acts performed in their official duties. The petition argues that such blanket immunity could leave citizens without an effective remedy for alleged wrongdoing by the Commission
  • The Supreme Court told voters whose names were deleted from Delhi's draft electoral rolls not to be apprehensive about seeking re-enrolment through Form 6, after the Election Commission assured it that such applicants would not be prosecuted merely because their names had appeared in earlier rolls
  • Congress leader Rahul Gandhi opened the party's campaign for the 2027 Punjab Assembly elections with an Insaaf rally in Sangrur, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann's home district, accusing the AAP government of failing to control drugs, gangster violence and corruption. Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge outlined six commitments, including a drug-free Punjab, protection of farmers, employment for young people and action against corruption
  • Rahul Gandhi accused the AAP government of running Punjab through a remote control from Delhi and questioned Bhagwant Mann's ability to tackle drug abuse, making personal allegations about the Chief Minister's conduct during their time together in Parliament
Stock markets on fire due to US results, Sensex gains 2008 points to reach its highest level in 8 months
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Turning the Front Page into Page 3

By Sunil Garodia
First publised on 2015-09-25 16:33:12

About the Author

Sunil Garodia Editor-in-Chief of indiacommentary.com. Current Affairs analyst and political commentator. Author of Cyber Scams in India, Digital Arrest, The Money Trap and The Human Hack
Till now, we were used to sensationalism on the television channels. The Sheena Bora murder case has turned mainstream media sensationalist too. Someone has rightly commented that the Front Page has now become Page 3. The situation is going out of hand with a daily dose of tit-bits about the dramatis persona in the case dominating news in India. Who is interested in reading so much trash about Peter Mukherjea, Indrani Mukherjea and her various husbands and their combined progeny? Evidence says almost everyone.

Scandal sells and sells so forcefully that our venerated newspapers have turned into screaming tabloids. If someone in public life is involved in a serious crime like murdering her own daughter, it definitely is front page news, maybe for a period of two or three days as developments unfold. But digging up the past of such a person and splashing it all over the front page is not mainstream news. It is plain, simple gossip and is not worth front paging by venerated newspapers.

But almost everyone now believes in the maxim that people should be given what they want. Hence, when we pick up the newspapers these days, we have headlines like “Indrani stoic in court while daughter breaks down” and have two column into 25 cms photographs of a police officer carrying a suitcase that was to be used to carry Indrani’s sons body after he was murdered too, on the front page. Do these items deserve to be on the front page even a week after the story first broke? I am of the opinion that they do not and should have been relegated to the inside pages long ago.

But the urge to attract new readers and do what others are doing is so strong that not one newspaper has gone off the story and moved on to more pressing items. Indrani Mukherjea should demand royalty from the press for squeezing every little drop out of her life. There were big pictures of her parents’ house in Guwahati, for God’s sake, as if anyone would be interested to know how her parents live. But there are readers for these stories and the newspapers are catering to the lowest common denominator, never mind journalistic standards.