Friday, February 16, 2007

Less of Pakistan, more of China


This is might be pretty obvious but let me just say it out for the record: "India and Pakistan" seems to be occurring less and less in news and "India and China" is on a slow rise (notice the little spike somewhere mid-2006). But hey it takes a little bomb blast or a gun fire in the border to get the "india and pakistan" spike up, so just keep your fingers crossed hoping nothing abnormal happens.

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Enough Coverage?

Steve Herrmann of BBC talks about BBC and its place in Rising India. He also asks how they differ from/compare to the local media channels in India.

Here at UC Berkeley, there is a little tradition of having the main pages of selected daily newspapers on a library wall. There are six slots, two of which are taken: The Washington Post, The Guardian. Two of the other four slots are most often (9/10 times) taken by the Jerusalem Post and the Arab News. The final two slots are more generic, usually taken by South China Morning Post, The Asahi Shimbun, The New Anatolian, Irish Independent and rarely (i mean rarely) there is The Times of India. So everyday when I look at that wall, I tell myself “Well, Middle East is definitely important. But is it worth 9/10 times when the two giant countries China and India are rising ??”. I get a similar feeling when I watch BBC in India. BBC is of course outstanding in its coverage, analysis etc. etc…but does it cover enough of India when it does Indian programming? Most of the times, it is far less when compared to NDTV and its ilk.