Wikileaks Release: The Hindu Edits Out Key Parts of The Guardian's News Item

Today's lead news item in The Hindu is a verbatim reproduction of The Guardian's front page news about the Wikileaks documents. However the most substantive and interesting elements of the The Guardian's item dealing with Afghan corruption, Chinese perfidy, the Putin/Berlusconi relationship and of Saudi donors bankrolling Al Qaeda have all been removed. Here are a few paragraphs mentioned in The Guardian's item not found in The Hindu version:

• Suspicions of corruption in the Afghan government, with one cable alleging that vice-president Zia Massoud was carrying $52m in cash when he was stopped during a visit to the United Arab Emirates. Massoud denies taking money out of Afghanistan.
• How the hacker attacks which forced Google to quit China in January were orchestrated by a senior member of the Politburo who typed his own name into the global version of the search engine and found articles criticizing him personally.
• The extraordinarily close relationship between Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, and Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, which is causing intense US suspicion. Cables detail allegations of "lavish gifts", lucrative energy contracts and the use by Berlusconi of a "shadowy" Russian-speaking Italian go-between.

The Guardian's item reads "The cables name Saudi donors as the biggest financiers of terror groups...". The Hindu has changed that to read "The cables name countries involved in financing terror groups...". The reference to Washington's agreement with the government of Yemen to cover up the use of US aircraft to bomb Al Qaeda targets in that country has been omitted.

The omission of China and Saudi Arabia are easily explained but I am not sure about the rest.

Update: Thanks to Ananthkrishnan for clarifying on twitter that The Hindu has carried these facts (mentioned in the above post as being omitted) in its international news page. This is a link to that item taken from the New York Times.

A profound revolution

Alan Rusbridger, in this interview, says that chindu still stands for "something" -- this "something" used to be "left-leaning" in the past; now it is "People's Daily of China". N.Ram and his minions have done lasting damage to the brand that it wont be easy to shake this image off. The people of India never forgave Nehru for folly on China and I don't think they will be any more accommodating with chindu.
Chindu's analysis is biased, the brand is tarnished and N.Ram is taking the loyal readers for a ride. Alan is making the right noises but chindu does not look like it is keen to listen. The communists, who are so fond of people's revolution, won't be liking this one.
The Hindu : Opinion / Interviews : ‘We are going through a profound revolution'

We ought to use the information that is out there now, and very widely available, and become aggregators and analysers. We ought to build on the brands that we have, while we have them. Great titles like The Hindu and The Guardian still stand for something and are a kind of viewpoint or set of values. I think it is important that we use that brand, and that community of readers who understand and want to be a part of that community.
If we establish the right relationship with our readers, we can create something which enhances our journalism and enables us to go on doing things that we need to.