Just a lot of bull

REGIONAL ROUND-UP

The good news first: regional language newspapers covered the news of the large number of Initial Public Offerings by companies such as DLF Ltd on their business pages. The bad news: even in Maharashtra, the news did not make it to the front pages as it did in the English language news dailies.

In the Hindi heartland, the main news for several days running was the great presidential battle, with Dainik Bhaskar, Dainik Jagran, Rajasthan Patrika and Punjab Kesri carrying headlines such as 'Kalam fires a missile' to describe the President telling the Third Front leaders that he was willing to consider running for President again if he was assured a victory. Most papers carried a picture of the Third Front leaders on their way to meet President Kalam.

Other headlines included those on how the NDA was looking for a way out, on Sunita Williams' ordeal in space. Punjab Kesri had two stories on onion prices on different days that were diametrically opposite ""one said onion prices were set to rise, the other said they were all set to fall given the expected surge in production. Punjab Kesri's business page had a story on how ICICI's public issue was lapped up by investors within 30 minutes of it opening for subscription. Dainik Bhaskar had a story on how the Indian IPO market was the world's 8th largest; the paper also had a report on how UTI Mutual Fund was planning to come up with an issue.

In the Kannada press, the spate of IPOs were treated as news briefs. However, the findings of a special committee of legislators looking into land encroachment around Bangalore were reported on a routine basis. With three more farmers in the state committing suicide due to increasing debts, most papers criticised the government for failing to put an end to the problem.

The presidential election continued to receive front page coverage in all the leading Kannada dailies. The newspapers were critical in their approach.

Market leader Vijaya Karnataka said in its editorial: "The post of the president is the highest honour in this country. Unfortunately, even election to the president's post is not bereft of politics. All political parties should arrive at a consensus while electing the next president. The process has become a mockery."

None of the prominent Marathi newspapers thought the IPOs were worthy of comment. While Loksatta didn't carried a single item on the ICICI IPO, Maharashtra Times and Sakal carried single news items on their business pages on the day when IPO opened. Maharashtra Times carried the translation of the story by its sister publication Economic Times, giving basic details about the IPO. The Sakal story asked small investor to invest in the IPO even though the premium seemed high since most analysts felt the returns would be high.

As in other parts of the country, the twists and turns in the presidential race occupied the most space.

In Andhra Pradesh, Eenadu splashed an extensively-researched analytical piece on why the share prices of Hyderabad-based Nagarjuna Agrichem Limited were growing by the day as the lead story on its business page. On Thursday, Eenadu and Andhra Jyothi carried a story on the increasing number of women investing in stocks.