I thoroughly believe that the Times of India newspaper has propaganda, an agenda for furthering their own cause viz. their profit and is also part of a ‘grand global conspiracy’. Very often you see the colourful box headlined ‘celebrate with The Times’ where ‘the times’ has a double meaning. They also have another line viz. ‘move with The Times’ or the like where again ‘the times’ means both the newspaper as well as the prevailing times of today suggesting that to read the TOI is to be progressive.  Notice they do not tell us what it is that we must celebrate. They just want us to celebrate. They show an animation of a family holding each others’ hands and moving gaily round in a circle in effect celebrating life.  So, the TOI wants us to be happy and content and celebrate life with The Times with the presumption that all is good, that ‘the times’ are good. Let us ask the question: what should we celebrate? Should we celebrate the growing divide between the rich and the poor or state-sponsored genocide, or that oil has peaked and we cannot continue to live in the system we live in forever, or that the human species today lives at the expense of the “death of birth” of several species? The Times of India does not address key issues; when it does it does not research deep; it provides selective evidence, and one side of the story. The knot is tied when the Times of India sells us good news, happiness, hopes and dreams and raises a toast to us saying, ‘Let’s celebrate!’ which reassures people who do not ask questions or are alarmed into any action. The TOI sells us dreams for India to be a major superpower one day; dreams of a better India in general. They will tell us elaborative stories of the successes of Ambanis and Indian corporations and the growing Indian economy. They will not tell you in how turbulent times we live. So often you see on the international page a news item of a mere fifty words telling that a suicide bomber bombed a US military jeep in Baghdad or that a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself in a public square in Israel. You would never hear of the circumstances that forced the sixteen year old girl to do what she did. All of them, by default, come in the same bracket of terrorists.
You would have elaborate reviews on how India is moving ahead on the path of progress; in other words how much more it resembles western society. The number of flyovers, shopping malls and the metro rail are all indications of progress. You would have elaborative editorial reviews on how Indian economy is growing but would never be told of the cost that is paid in blood by the poor, in Singur, in Nandigram. You would have reports of reaping crores which purposely give a wrong face to the tragic, untold story of helpless villagers displaced from their lands -- in the millions, throughout the sixty-year old history of the Indian republic. Displaced by construction of dams, of special economic zones and other "structural adjutsment programs". 

One may argue that it is important to sell hope and dreams. But that does not mean that a newspaper should hide the bad stories and the gory details. It is precisely this that gives the tag of ‘Hindu-Muslim riots’ to state-sponsored genocide. This lays the ground-work for right-wing political parties like the BJP to whip up public sentiment -- indulge in war-mongering locally and talk of national security nationally -- and ask for undemocratic laws like POTA to return.



It is quite interesting to see how ingeniously the products viz. SRK and TOI promote each other. Each furthers the cause of the other. TOI associates itself with people who are the heroes of modern society like SRK, Kalam, Murthy, etc. It invites them to be ‘guest editors’. TOI is the only product to be advertised by the president of India and leaders like Murthy. What an ingenious way to win the hearts of the people. TOI cleverly associates itself with the people as though it is a voice of the people. The front-page once had a we-will-take-no-more headlined article addressed to the terrorists. Look at the amount of ‘conversation with readers’ TOI has and you have to look no further. Successful businesses and products like SRK, Indian cricket are given incessant, front-line coverage while other languishing and struggling are marginalized.


We love stories of Indian corporations swallowing European corporations; we love next-day stories of how the Indian cricket team won the match against Pak or the Aussies; we love to read interviews of SRK and what message he wants to give to the youth of India, we love to read about progress being made on all fronts, we love to read about the global impact by Indians. We get to read in the TOI what we like to read, we pump in this drug aware or unaware that it makes us happy, blithely blind and numb to the sickness and ills that plague the world today.


The least that the TOI can do is to be a bit sober and solemn like The Hindu and stop incessantly blowing the happy harp. But that is how the TOI sells today – by blowing its happy harp. That is their control and grip over the people. It blinds people into believing that all is good so much so that they can ‘celebrate with The Times’, which they do. India is an important country today and the collective opinion and perception of the Indian people is important and makes a difference in the big offices that formulate policies that affect the world. The TOI is a stakeholder in the grand global conspiracy to mislead the people so they go about their normal lives while injustice, exploitation, atrocities keep taking place in the poor regions of the world whether within India or abroad, while policies that bring prosperity to some and injustice, poverty, hunger, and white DEATH to others are formulated without the knowledge of the public at large, while the line between plutocracy and democracy blurs day by day.