Over at the Indian media blog Sans Serif, Pritam Sengupta counts the number of advertisements by the Government of India on the holy occassion of the late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s birth anniversary, and discovers a statistical oddity:
While it is natural that ToI and HT should garner so many ads given their large circulations in the national capital, the second place for the Express group is revealing considering it sells less than five per cent of market-leaders ToI and HT in the Delhi market, which both sell in excess of 5 lakh copies.
The tabloid Mail Today, which has the third highest circulation among the Delhi newspapers, too gets fewer ads than the Indian Express. [Read the full post]
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 
The only way to ensure that the sacrifices and contributions of past leaders are not erased from public memory is by issuing full-page advertisements about them in the newspapers!!! It’s a double whammy as this way the party also ensures that the progeny can get the spin-off benefits. Obviously, the beneficiaries of these huge ads will ensure a stream of coverage for the party and its scion!!
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One only needs to notice the Indian Express editor’s biases to explain this ‘statistical oddity’.
Consider this interview of Ratan Tata after the publication of Radia tapes: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/the-most-noise-usually-comes-from-the-people-who-have-the-most-to-hide/717309/0
Mr. Gupta didn’t ask even a single hard question, instead he steered the whole interview in favour of Mr. Tata.
The neutrality of IE’s editor has anyway been highlighted in this forum by Aditya Nigam.
It is sad to see the newspaper that took on Ms. Gandhi during the Emergency go down this way.
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Indian Express lost that fearlessness with the exit of Arun Shourie.
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