maildrop999

who are the controling shareholders of Times Of India and
its allied publications.


I am getting lot of JUNK Mail from them, where there
is no return mail address (they sender name /s are all bogus
enteries)


Thanks


Sudhir

cricketislife!

Many say that that newspaper is itself junk and many people get it
everyday ..!

naniwadekar

Alert - This post has as little to do with music as RDB and ARR.


Are you sure about that? I think Girilal Jain was in no way
related to the Jain family which owns Times group.

Girilal Jain used to criticise Rajiv Gandhi in 1985-86 when
everybody else hailed Rajiv as hero. In 1987, things got
rough for Rajiv and there was talk of Zail Singh dismissing his
govt under some pretext. Rajiv invited Girilal for tea and
bought his loyalty. Girilal's sudden turn into a Rajiv sycophant
rebounded on him when Congress lost power in '89. ToI chucked
him out. Girilal became a chamcha of Sangh Parivar and would
present Hindutva line in Ram Mandir related debates. He died
a pathetic man in 1994/95.


- dn

maildrop999

who are the controling shareholders of Times Of India and
its allied publications.


I am getting lot of JUNK Mail from them, where there
is no return mail address (they sender name /s are all bogus
enteries)


Thanks


Sudhir

cricketislife!

Many say that that newspaper is itself junk and many people get it
everyday ..!

cricfan

The Jain family. Used to belong to Girilal Jain, and was then handed over to
his son Ashok. The latter took away
editorial powers from the professional editors and changed that into the
infamous owner-editor concept. There wasn't
much editing to be done anyway. Their editorial policy is quite simple.
First fill up the newspaper/website with TOI adverts
and if there's any space left, fill it up with gossip.

Arun

naniwadekar

Alert - This post has as little to do with music as RDB and ARR.


Are you sure about that? I think Girilal Jain was in no way
related to the Jain family which owns Times group.

Girilal Jain used to criticise Rajiv Gandhi in 1985-86 when
everybody else hailed Rajiv as hero. In 1987, things got
rough for Rajiv and there was talk of Zail Singh dismissing his
govt under some pretext. Rajiv invited Girilal for tea and
bought his loyalty. Girilal's sudden turn into a Rajiv sycophant
rebounded on him when Congress lost power in '89. ToI chucked
him out. Girilal became a chamcha of Sangh Parivar and would
present Hindutva line in Ram Mandir related debates. He died
a pathetic man in 1994/95.


- dn

cricfan

OFF topic..

My apologies. Age has dimmed my memory. The following is from a back issue
of Outlook
--
Ye Ol' Lady Of Bori Bunder
Can you recall the editor of India's largest circulating daily? No. That's
TOI's achievement.

KHUSHWANT SINGH


INDIA DOWN THE PAGES: THE TIMES GROUP SINCE 1838
by Times Group
PRICE: NOT MENTIONED; PAGES: 148
Seth Ram Kishen Dalmia bought Bennett Coleman & Co, publishers of The
Times of India and its other publications, in 1947. He wanted to have a
subservient press to propagate his brand of Hinduism with cow protection and
vegetarianism as top priorities. He hated Nehru's agnostic socialism; in
return Nehru hated his guts. I had a very brief meeting with Seth Dalmia. I
had applied for the post of editor of The Illustrated Weekly.


He asked me one question: "Do you know Sanskrit?" I replied, "No, Sir, I don
't." He dismissed me curtly: "Go and learn Sanskrit, then come to me." I got
the job 20 years later, without a word added to my Sanskrit vocabulary.
If Dalmia had his way, Bennett Coleman's publications would be devoted to
propagating his brand of Hindutva. Fortunately he got into severe financial
trouble and had to give the publishing house to his son-in-law Shanti Prasad
Jain, husband of his eldest daughter through Rama, the first of his six
wives. It was Shanti and more his son Ashok who put Bennett Coleman back on
its feet. Today Ashok's widow Indu and her two sons Samir and Vineet run the
company. The driving force behind its spectacular success as India's leading
group of newspapers is Samir.

I took over as editor of Illustrated Weekly in 1969 and held the post for
nine long years. I got an insider's view of the organisation. It ran like a
well-oiled machine. Editors were well-paid, provided a house allowance, a
new car and fringe benefits. We sat in red swivel chairs, served tea and
coffee and a sumptuous vegetarian lunch. We were given a key each to open
doors of lavatories reserved for editors. To have a pissoir of one's own was
the ultimate in editorial prestige.

I was fortunate in being left to re-shape the Weekly. The Jains had been
divested of control of the company for some financial hanky-panky. A
benevolent retired Justice K.T. Desai was officiating chairman. An able and
non-interfering Ram Tarneja was general manager. I lasted out till the
company was restored to the Jains.

The Times group has every reason to crow over its achievements. There are
newspapers which enjoy more credibility and provide better reading. But the
Times reigns supreme. The credit goes largely to Samir. He sensed that if
print had to survive TV, it had to radically alter its content. While a
weekly relies heavily on the personality of its editor, a daily does not.
Three-fourths of its content is taken from the wires or foreign agencies
(strip cartoons and crosswords, for example); the rest comprises
correspondents' reports and readers' contributions, leaving the editor and
his deputies a third or even less of the editorial page to comment on world
and national events. Not many people read editorials. The Times' first
Indian editor Frank Moraes was much respected for his forthrightness but not
much read. His successor N.J. Nanporia was neither admired nor read. Sham
Lal was lauded for his erudition but few people read more than his opening
paras. Likewise Girilal Jain, regarded as a perceptive political analyst and
the first protagonist of Hindutva, had few takers. His successor Dileep
Padgaonkar failed to convince his proprietors that "next to the prime
minister he was doing the second most important job in India".

So we have the ironic situation that while we can name editors of other
dailies, no one knows the name of the editor of the most widely circulated
paper in the country.Samir Jain (rightly?) concluded that editors were
dispensable. From his great grandfather he has inherited the uncanny gift of
making money: the Times has become a major money-spinner. The trinity who
run it know what is and what is not dispensable. R.K. Laxman is not
dispensable (he is worth three editors). God and religion are not
dispensable: so we have articles on god, yoga, meditation and quotes from
the scriptures. Scantily clad starlets are not dispensable: male readers
need some titillation every morning. Books and book reviews are as
dispensable as editors. That is the secret behind the longevity of the old
lady of Bori Bunder. Also periodical injection of life-giving drugs by the
Jain trinity. A reasonable way of discovering this secret is to compare its
Sunday supplements with those of other national dailies. It has a string of
contributors who command readerships of their own.

The one lasting contribution Bennett Coleman has made to Indian journalism
is to cut to size editors who had grandiose notions about their positions.
The roll of honour of those unceremoniously shown the door includes Frank
Moraes, Girilal Jain, A.S. Raman, Kamleshwar, Inder Malhotra, Prem Shankar
Jha, Dom Moraes and Dileep Padgaonkar. I don't feel too bad being named
among them.


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