Newspapers that I get but don't read!!

We get four dailies at home

1. The Hindu
2. Deccan Chronicle
3. Hans India
4. Times of India

First one, The Hindu, being a 'madarasi' has been with me right from my childhood.

Second one was added after I moved to Hyderabad and 'settled' after marriage in 1970

I subscribed to the third after persistent cajoling by a journalist working for that daily - he used to oblige me by publishing whatever I sent. 

Fourth one  - TOI - has its own story. My backside neighbour, during the past two years has become  a sort of 'Vikramaditya', living in Hyderabad, Mattapalli and Bengaluru alternately. Not wanting to discontinue his annual subscription, he had asked the newspaper boy to deliver TOI to my house. Whenever he is Hyderabad he will 'borrow'  TOI if he finds time to read. Glancing at newspaper was a luxury in terms of time as my neighbour and his family are travelling on a spiritual path.

For the past three days I am getting a fifth newspaper - Telangana Today. First I thought that the newspaper boy was putting it by mistake. Today I discovered that it is a new daily published from Banjara Hills. Contents and coverage are good. It is hardly a fortnight old. I may be getting promotional free copies. Today's edition contains 16+4+4 pages (Main paper + tabloid + Sundayscape). 

What attracted my attention is that the website uses .news Top Level Domain, a registration which is very rare in India. (http://telangananatoday.news/)

Though I get 4 or 5 newspapers I am very poor in reading them. No time nor deep interest, I should say. I wonder how I escape exposing my ignorance of current affairs so often. Only my first daughter lives with me. She travels a lot. Only raddi wala benefits. As I have hinted earlier, I like the newspaper inserts, especially on Sundays, more than newspapers themselves. They have some value!! Like justice Rangarajan said recently, no expenditure is useless - it helps someone somewhere!

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Dr P Vyasamoorthy

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Advertisements in Newspaper websites

Advertisements in Newspaper websites

Of late many Indian newspaper websites are inserting as many as 8 advertisements on a single screen. The text or the matter you need to read is so badly hidden that even part of the header (title of the story) is hidden. If you install an Adblocker they detect and ask you to remove the Adblocker software. I refuse to visit websites that impolitely threaten me to do that. The worst offenders are The New Indian Express ad Times of India.

Advertisements are a great nuisance and annoyance to the reader. Some advertisements hijack you to move to their site even if you are just hovering around (not clicking) the AD area. Some play video with noise without any concern for what you are doing. That offending video AD may be somewhere, not easily locatable on the page.

In the case of Ads placed by Google, you are asked, when you try to close it, several questions like:

·         Is the AD repetitive,   

·         Is it irrelevant?           

·         Have you seen it earlier?       

·         Is the AD blocking text you want to read etc

However, if you have to answer these queries again and again for closing each AD you will get irritated and the concerned AD may not be from Google after all. Whatever Google ‘learns’ from your response is specific to the AD, its placement on THAT page / screen, to you as a reader etc.

How do you tackle this AD menace? Here are a few tips:

1.      Go to the epaper of the same newspaper. The link from where you came to know about a specific story will give you clues as how to reach the right date, city, page etc. You may use the Search facility also within the epaper. At least, as now, they are not inserting Ads in epapers.  

2.      You are interested in reading the news and not really from THAT stupid paper that is

insisting on serving Ads. SO go to some other newspaper and get the contents.

3.      If you are disturbed by unwanted sound from an offending video AD then look for a small speaker icon in the tab for that window at the top row and click it to muffle it.

4.      Go to one of the several news aggregator sites like scroll or samachar or sify and read the gist over there.

5.      If you can wait and get hold of a paper copy with your neighbors, try that route

6.       I subscribe (pay annual subscription) to The Hindu, TOI, Deccan Chronicle and Has India. On print (hard) copy, I have the option of skipping any number of Ads. Nobody can force me read the AD that I don’t want to waste my time. Why treat me differently when I go the website?

7.      If all these tricks fail, just leave it. What the heck if you don’t read it?

Please share with others tricks / tips you be using to fight these AD guys.

Addendum to the above - 26th Sep 2016

You may install readability.com extension in your browser. This strips all advertisements and gives a clean copy. In the case of TOI, the trick is to go to the TOI URL and click on readbility icon before the ADBLOCKER WARNING pops up. 

Which of the Newspapers are supportive of Senior Citizens?

Which of the Newspapers are supportive of Senior Citizens?

Deccan Chronicle, in a full page advertisement on 2^nd July 2013 mentioned that, according to Indian Readership Survey (IRS), Deccan Chronicle Hyderabad enjoys a readership of 4.93 Lakhs while The Times of India has 1.42 Lakhs and The Hindu comes third with 1.12 lakh readers.  This led me to ask the question: Fine, but, is it (Deccan Chronicle) useful to us? As far as we, senior citizens (who form 10% of the population) are concerned, which of these newspapers are sympathetic to our cause? Which newspaper publishes more stories, articles or interviews and so on, affecting the lives of the elderly?  

When I posed this question to my friends, Sri VRV Rao promptly predicted correctly:

Times of India is the only Daily Paper which gives maximum news about Senior Citizens and quite considerate as far as I know. Regarding sympathy, I am doubtful about this. Next comes THE HINDU - It is quite sympathetic towards Elders and tries to give good information about their activities, Old-age Homes, Entertainment, Hobbies etc. This is my opinion. VRV Rao

SSS-GLOBAL is a web based yahoo group for senior citizens. There are 680 members and was ranked FOURTH among all such groups by Yahoo last year. The group has survived 12 years since inception in 2000. One of the specialties of this group is that a very large number of news items of interest to the retiree population – on all relevant topics for 55plus – are meticulously culled out from leading news sources in India and abroad and circulated to all. They invite lot of discussions also. Currently there are 1,41,000 messages exchanged among members. Apart from the moderator, who is an Information Scientist himself, one member Sri VRV Rao has gained specialized expertise in contributing / posting news items. His focus is Senior Citizens. He has sent several thousands of news items all by himself. The message database of sss-global yahoo group is a good source to find answers to the question posed in first paragraph.

A quick search of this sss-global messages database yields the following data:

SN	Paper	2010	2011	2012	2013	Total	IRS rank
1	Times of India	369	975	847	402	2593	2
2	The Hindu	80	336	620	254	1290	3
3	Deccan Chronicle	17	142	135	26	320	1

Therefore you may see that Deccan Chronicle, though enjoys a larger readership than others, is not so senior friendly or senior sympathetic when compared to other newspapers.  What should we do to gain media support in equal measure from all newspapers?              

The Hindu and APJ in my life

The Hindu and APJ in my life

APJ referred to in this story is Prof AP Jambulingam and not Ex-President of India popularly known as APJ. There are similarities among them, about that a little later.

Prof AP Jambulingam, nonagenarian (92), passed away on 20^th June 2013. He was the Principal of Guindy Engineering College in early sixties, then for two decades Founder Principal of Southern Regional Institute for Training Technical Teachers (later it became Technical Teachers Training Institute (TTTI), and now National Institute for Technical Teacher Training (NITTT). He served as expert in UNESCO and the UN after retirement.

Prof Jambulingam is a simple, humane, God-fearing person. Essentially a mechanical engineer, he turned out to be a leader, an institution builder, a teacher – trainer, educationist and what not? As far I am concerned he was a very considerate and compassionate boss, for I worked under him for about four years as the first librarian of TTTI during late sixties.

It was a job advertisement in “The Hindu” that brought me to him and TTTI. It was again a Hindu advertisement about a vacancy in Indian Detonators that took me away from him to Hyderabad. Again it is now The Hindu obituary advertisement that told me about his separation in a permanent way. He was a marvellous man. It was the tremendous freedom, independence and encouragement he gave (that was innate in him) that helped me set up a decent technical library at TTTI. This has grown over four decades into an enviable Resource Centre, headed presently Dr Ravichandran.

Once, to help his daughter in her school work, he asked me for some info on history of bicycles. Following conversation ensued after his reading up what I gave:

APJ: Who suggested this wonderful book? Though I am a mechanical Engineer I had not known about these things!

Me: Sir, It was Prof Cornelius who asked this book to be bought

APJ: Wonderful. She has done excellent work. Her contributions to the library will be remembered by all.

I wish to point out that Prof APJ and Prof Cornelius HOD, Education, were not getting on well due to certain personal misunderstanding. But APJ won’t mix up personal animosities while judging a person’s professional work. That was APJ.

Prof APJ and President APJ have many things in common. Both are simple. Both are loved by people. Both were leaders of a different kind. Both liked kids. Both were innovative. Both were excellent bosses wherever they happened to work. If you look up to ex-president APJ in great respect with awe I do the same to both – to the latter because of my personal association, to the former because of what I know indirectly about him.

Photo Contest on Elderly workmen by The Hindu

The Hindu has announced a photo contest for depicting the elderly at work.
Read all about it, contribute your original photos or votes for photos already submitted.
I am not surprised to see that already (within a day) some 50 photos are here.
Photos depict the hard life of many downtrodden old people who have to work for keeping hunger away. Pick up your camera, roll up your sleeves,  shoot and submit. Our streets have plenty to offer as genuine heart moving subjects.

http://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/zooming-in-on-the-elderly/article4862886.ece

  URL to register yourself / submit photo entries is:

http://www.thehindushutterbug.com/

If you are not visiting the site for further action there is no point in giving details here!!

From my friends I want to see unusual working conditions or unusual tasks being performed - generaly not expected of old people.

All the BEST. Win a prize. Meanwhile you can share your experiences while shooting here by way of comments or posts.

Vyasamoorthy