One of the most sensitive topics faced by the country for at least 20 years... The whole country is worried about which way the verdict goes... If it goes one way, 15 million people are going to be hurt and if it goes the other way, then 80 million people are going to be upset... And just so you know, status quo is going to hurt everyone...
Clearly, the Supreme Court has postponed its verdict due to security reasons. The government is preparing itself to counter a backlash.
And what does this newspaper do?
Just one Q -- why?
When I grew up, Times of India had captured Mumbai like anything. There were so many competing newspapers -- Indian Express, Asian Age, Hindustan Times -- but none of them could even remotely match the popularity of Times of India. Bombay Times was the connoisseur of who's who of town.
In fact, if you carry any other newspaper in the train, you were looked down upon. The only exception was Economic Times -- carrying it meant that you are least interested in what is happening in the city and you are concerned only about money.
When I moved to Bangalore, I missed the Mumbai TOI because Bangalore edition of TOI was really cheap. It was a masala newspaper to the core but whenever I was back in Mumbai, I could still feel that Mumbai TOI had retained its class.
But now, TOI is no longer "the" newspaper. It is caught in the whirlpool of TRP / ratings / market reach etc that they have just lost the class that set it apart from rest of the pack. It is not that the rest of the pack has caught up with TOI, rather it is the other way round, TOI has stooped down to be just one of the pack.
Everyday, I used to get irritated to see sleazy headlines meant to just a few more hits on the homepage. But today was the epitome. I give up on TOI at this moment.
Hopefully, TOI will get its act together and retain its prior glory. And I will start visiting the TOI website 20 times a day, like I did a few months back... I really hope... Against hope...
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