Ad. intrusion in news space

We know about the increasing hold ad. sponsors have on our newspapers. But doesn’t this appear a bit intrusive ? Or is it thinking out-of-the-box in page-designing?

That this can happen in The Hindu speaks of desperate times for the print media. The newspaper’s managing director N Murali speaks of  excessive reliance of the print media on advertising  revenue.  He reckons the ad. component accounts for an ‘unsustainingly staggering’  85 percent of the total revenue of an English newspaper.

No wonder we have  the ad.agencies making newspaper pages, such as this one – back-page of The Hindu of Sept.29, 2009.  If editor has a say in how  news items are to be displayed in a given page,  it doesn’t seem very evident. Editor still retains editorial freedom; he/she is free to endorse  ad. manager .

 We have a media group where a  newspaper is termed a ‘product’;  and its editor reports to  the ‘brand manager’.

Welcome to Mysore Dasara

We have a committee of people’s  represnetatives  that  has  put  up  huge  hoardings all over Mysore.

A page from Star of Mysore

The photo says it all.  Wish the newspaper editor  had given photo credit to the person who took this telling photograph.

At MUDA Circle, JLB Road

This one extends a  Heartly wel comes to guests & visitors ‘. Never mind the angrezi. It’s  the spirit that counts,  Dasara spirit.  Besides,  English is not our mathrabhasha.

Entry Tax: A state-sponsored racket

Chittur Kavu

Chittur Bhagavathi temple  is  just 40 km from Pollachi.   And we paid Rs.600  at the RTO check-post  to get there.  We had hired a  taxi,  Tata Sumo,  from Mysore.   I learnt later that tax is Rs.300 for an Indica or Ambassador.  Smart taxi operators, they say, dodge tax by  switching  colour of  their number-plate,  from yellow to white.  Private vehicles bearing white licence plate are not flagged down at RTO check-posts. Some  taxi operators, they say,  carry two number-plates -  yellow and white.  A white number plate helps in  crossing  RTO check-posts, but then those manning the RTO check-posts are familiar with cab-drivers  making  regular trips on the route.   

Road travel permit is a convenient device adopted by state governments to raise revenue.  It is not a road maintentance levy,  for not all road-users pay at RTO check-posts; taxi-cabs are singled out for collection.   Besides,  the entry tax is not  uniform in all states.  The next time  I visit   Chittur Kavu,  I wouldn’t take Tata Sumo,  that too with Karnataka  number plate.  Trick is  to opt for a Tamilnadu  registered  vehicle,  and,  find a taxi-operator who  switches colour of his number-plate.   

 The entry tax varies with the type of vehicle; and it differs from one state to another. We paid Rs.550 at Bennari check-post to enter Tamilnadu from Mysore.  Kerala charges Rs.600 for the privilege of entering the state.  Tour operators say Karnataka levies the highest entry tax. As if they are doing a huge favour on tourists,  Karnataka is reported to have waived entry tax for vehicles from other states during Dasara (Sept.18-29).

Austerity, neta style

Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee,  man who controls government spending,  made headlines, travelling economy class to Kolkata Saturday last. In case you wonder if it was a one-day, one-way wonder   done for media effect, Pranab-bhai’s  office told The Hindu that the minister  would  return to New Delhi, also in economy class. 

 Mocking at Mr Mukherjee’s austerity call,  Karnataka’s Deve Gowda  offered to give up his MP’s salary, if it would help the economy.  Travelling  economy class  was another matter.  Mr Gowda wanted to know if  an elderly person with pain in the joints wasn’t entitled to a mode of travel that “allows me to stretch my legs”.   Mr Gowda has a point.   He is entitled to his comforts. 

 But then Mr Gowda,  has-been PM and now MP,   could emulate  fellow Kannadiga and external affairs  Minister S M Krishna;  and foot his own biils,  to stay in accustomed comfort.  Mr Gowda could do the same, and fly business-class,  if  he feels entitled to more leg space .   Mr Krishna and his deputy in the ministry Sashi Tharoor are reported to be staying in star hotels  in New Delhi at their own expense.

 Deccan Herald ran a story on the lifestyle of yet another Kannadiga, the late S Nijalingappa. He,  unlike Mr Gowda,  didn’t think of  entitlement as has-been CM.  Mr Nijalingappa,  after having been chief minister, declined the offer of a government house in Bangalore;  and  he didn’t  accept treatment at a private super-speciality hospital at government expense.  Mr Nijalingappa had himself  admitted at a government hospital for treatment of a  fracture at an advanced age.  

A  chief minister in office who led a life   way too simple for the position he held  was Nripen Chakraborty of Tripura.  As CM Mr Chakraborty stayed in a room at his party office.  At the end of his term as chief minister he shited from CPI-M office to MLA quarters,  according to Mr R Sankaran who was Tripura chief secretary during  Mr Chakraborthy’s tenure. On his transfer from Tripura,  Mr Sankaran was invited to a farewell dinner by CM,  at which he was served the same quality rice that was supplied to ration-card holders under the public distribution system. 

Mr Sankaran recalled that he was invited to a breakfast Mr chakraborty hosted for a visiting central minister, Mr Raghunatha Reddy.  Menu – two gulab jamoons with tea.  The minister, unaware of CM’s style, was waiting for more till Mr Sankaran whispered to Mr Reddy  in Telugu that nothing else was on the menu.  At this the union minister was reported to have observed that the communists were entitled to their austere ways,  but they could do with a good breakfast.

Outsourcing R&D holds the key

It is all very well for US politicians and the media to blame the country’s job loss on Bangalore.  But would a cut-back on Bangalored jobs and a freeze on outsourcing improve the employment situation? Bangalore-ing is no longer in vogue; it is a disincentive for companies seeking Obama’s stimulus package. But job losses are reported still. 

It is not because of the concern of the rich for the uplift of the developing world or the benovelence of corporate America, but because of their enlightend self-interest that so many jobs got Bangalored, for so long,  till some time back. A pity,the US can’t bring  the Bangalored jobs back to Boston. Instead, the US recession  has had a seismic impact on India, by way of loss of high-paying jobs, notably, in the software industry. Economists reckon the end of recession is in sight, but the six million plus lost jobs won’t be re-created anytime soon. In earlier recessions, they say,  the US economy had managed to bounce back  because of a steady stream of  tech innovations that gave impetus to economic growth with   high-value jobs creation on a large scale.  The current recession appears to have drained innovative juice out of the entreprenuerial America.

According to Businessweek, America’s position as innovation leader is no longer unrivaled. Time there was when the country had the best of universities, the strongest corporate research, and a government that invested agressively in areas such as advance communications and space exploration. Upshot was a steady stream of world-changing innovations such as the transistor at Bell Labs, and the Internet at the Defence Dept. It was in such a scenario US companies outsourced jobs to India  for cost advantage, but a lot more high-paying jobs were created within the US through breakthrough innovations. This time, they say, the outsourced software and manufacturing jobs have largely been replaced by low-wage service jobs in fast-food and retail sectors. The trend is attributed to a dearth of  breakthrough innovations in recent years; and this is happening  at a time when millions of jobs have been  lost to recession. The point made in the Businessweek article  is that the devil is not in outsourcing.  The key to a bounce-back in the US economy may well be in outsourcing  R&D. 

IBM is already into it, with plans to set up overseas ‘collaboratories’  that match up company researchers with governments, universities and companies in other countries. IBM is looking at Saudi Arabia, Switzerland,China, Ireland,Taiwan and India. It is their enlightened self-interest that drives IBM and a few others into making deals to tap global R&D potentials for breakthrough innovations. The projects are in basic research,  the benefits of which may not be evident, or seem tangible,  for the next three to five years.  The research process  tend to  have  innovative  spin-offs  with commercial  potential. 

Companies that have strong R&D base may well see that it is in their best interest to look beyond national boundaries and their own corporate walls, and seek radical, and globalised collaboration for life-changing innovations.