Secularly unconcerned

REGIONAL ROUNDUP

English language newspapers have played up the news of Congress politicians being in favour of extending reservations to Muslims, as well as of the government's toughening stance on reservations for SC/STs in the private sector, but little of this has hit the front pages of regional language newspapers across the country. In the north, where the issue of reservations (for SC/STs and OBCs) has always evoked sharper reactions, few newspapers had even the politicians' statements on the front page. Dainik Jagran had it as the day's second lead with a box quoting the Congress Party as saying that both AR Antulay and M Veerapa Moily's statements in favour of such reservations were just a reiteration of an old party line. There was no edit on the subject, though one of the articles on the edit page dealt with this.

The Kannada papers "" Vijaya Karnataka, Praja Vani and Kannada Prabha "" carried the developments on the inside pages. There were no follow-up reports either. However, all newspapers prominently displayed former Karnataka chief minister Moily's call for extending reservation to Muslims in central government jobs.

The Marathi newspapers didn't find the issue of quota for minorities in jobs and educational institutes important enough. Even Shiv Sena mouthpiece Samna didn't gave any importance to this issue. Marathi newspapers were busy in covering Dalit killings in Khairlangi village in Vidarbha, the drunken driver killing seven people on the Mumbai pavements, and the forthcoming elections to the 167 municipal councils in the state.

In Chennai, Dinamalar carried a report on an inside page. And Telugu daily Eenadu carried just a single column story on Moily's comments, on an inside page. On Tuesday, Andhra Jyothi ran a two-column story on the Andhra Pradesh government withdrawing its appeal on 5 per cent reservations for Muslims in education and jobs from the Supreme Court on procedural grounds.