Recent trend in Opinion page

One of the bloggers had earlier pointed out the number of syndicated articles in Opinion pages in chindu. Over the past few weeks, apart from the two editorials, atmost one or two articles in the Opinion page are relevant to India. In fact, articles which would have been filed under International section are now being paraded as Editorial/Opinion articles. To give an example from today's paper, take this article about a Bosnian American arrested in a terror charge.
http://www.hindu.com/2010/01/11/stories/2010011155290900.htm
This article is syndicated from The New York Times News Service.

It looks like chindu is seriously short of columnists.
Hasan Suroor writes about British politics and occasionally talks of Asian community in Britain.
S.Viswanathan has made himself irrelevant by talking about general media matters. When he remembers his role and the charter of the ombudsman, he picks up a few reader's letters in support of his argument on the media issue he is highlighting. Here are the latest 5 articles of his:
Looking for a new media culture and media freedom
Rathore case, public anger and media coverage
Let the benefits of the Act reach the oppressed
An act with teeth, but of no use in protecting the weak online and off line
Andhra Pradesh political crisis and the role of the media

Take any of these articles and you will see that they can be reproduced in some other newspaper without too many changes. So, what exactly is he doing as Reader's Editor? He is just another columnist who writes bi-weekly for chindu. All that stuff about the first Indian newspaper to appoint ombudsman is bunkum.

Then, there is Sidddarth Varadarajan. We all know him well, don't we.

I wonder why the rest of the contributors like Praveen Swami, P.Sainath et al are being ignored. Not that they would have made a much difference though.

Pakistan's clock is ticking

Apparently somewhere Indian politicians and bureaucrats found some b*lls to force Pak into action.
I never thought, I'd read these words in the Chindu,

Islamabad to formulate plan to act against Lashkar-e-Taiba

After all the apologetic positioning by Chindu about Pakistan's so called innocence in the whole sordid affair, with the metaphorical gun being put to Pak's head by both India and the US, Chindu reports the obvious that LeT was involved with the ISI in planning and operating the Mumbai terrorist attack.
Even US politicians like McCain are sympathetic to India and appear resigned to the fact that India would retaliate.

This is India’s 9/11. We cannot tell India not to act when that is what we did, asking the Taliban to hand over Osama Bin Laden to avoid a war and waging one when they refused to do so,

However that article written by Nirupama Subramanian titled, McCain warns Pakistan of Indian air strikes does not have a single statement direct or implied where there is evidence of India's retaliatory air strikes. Such articles steaming with lack of logic appears to be Chindu's style these days.

Mu Ka's senile rants on the Maran brothers

The Mu Ka (CM of TN) vs. Maran brothers feud is something worthy of a Ekta Kapoor or Radhika mega serial coverage. For those unaware of this issue the gist being the Maran brothers owned TV Channels and newspapers conducted some polls last year which showed the DMK party in poor light and the portrayal of Stalin as heir apparent. For any unbiased observer this would appear to be a realistic portrayal of the state of affairs in Tamil Nadu. However elements within the DMK (i.e. people who were shown in bad light) raked up dissent with Mu Ka(Emperor Palpatine) that the Maran's were abusing their influence. So Mu Ka promptly showed the brothers the door in an effort to keep his family united.
Now yesterday Mu Ka in an early celebration of
Festivus decided to air the grievances against his grand nephews.
Chindu being the canny cat decided to favor Mu Ka against the Sun TV owners.
It gives a detailed coverage to Mu Ka but restricts Kalanidhi Maran's detailed statements to a paragraph.
With the ejection of Vaiko first and now the Maran brothers, DMK is following the most honorable of Indian political traditions, nepotism. And thanks to Chindu for not pointing out the obvious.

Chindu discovers pyramids in Tamil Nadu

Based on today's online version of Chindu, there were Pyramids discovered in Tamil Nadu as per the headline One more pyramid site. The image below is a sight to see,

However reading the article reveals that the pyramid was found near Cairo which is not yet part of Tamil Nadu (but Mu Ka wishes it were). The glorious days of doing editorial reviews are long gone.