Not so fast

REGIONAL ROUNDUP

Perhaps it's a bit early, but so far, few regional language newspapers have carried any stories on trends in the year that's about to end, or pointers to the year ahead. Unlike the English-language papers, even their edit pages are by and large not discussing national trends so far. There were some exceptions though.

In Mumbai, Maharashtra Times and Loksatta had analytical pieces summing up the major political events on the national scene. While Loksatta's article focussed on how despite ruling UPA providing many opportunities like the Volcker report, the Scorpion submarine pay off, the naval war room leak and the inept handling of the reservation issue in the higher and technical education institutes like the IITs and the IIMs, the BJP's internal fights prevented it from taking advantage of this.

Maharashtra Times also carried an article on how 2006 proved to be a good year for Bollywood with hits like Rang de Basanti, Lage Raho Munnabhai, Don, Kabhi Alvida na Kehna, Kabul Express and so on, and how 2007 was also likely to be a good year with films like Guru. Loksatta carried an op ed piece on calendars had changed over time reflecting the times we are living in. However, despite Maraharashtra having a long tradition of vibrant commercial as well as experimental theatre, none of the prominent newspapers carried any article on theatre had fared during the year.

Tamil daily Dinamalar dedicated a lot of space to carry reports relating to the second anniversary of the Tsunami tragedy, along with a number of photographs. It also carried reports on the hunger strike by Mamata Banerjee.

The Kannada papers restricted themselves to regional issues. The controversy over the medium of instruction in primary and high schools which plagued Karnataka through most of the year was discussed in some of the leading dailies as the year ended. According to the new rules, from the next academic year, English will be taught from the first standard onwards in government schools. Similarly, all English-medium private aided and unaided schools will have to teach Kannada from the first standard. Vijaya Karnataka was critical of the government for harping on the language issue for political gains. Similarly, Praja Vani said the controversy was uncalled for. "The government should take a firm decision by consulting all the stake-holders instead of imposing its decision on schools," the newspaper's editorial analysis said.

In the north, most newspapers carried stories on the political fallout of the Kavita murder case, the Shane Warne record haul of 700 wickets, and had editorials on how the BJP was going back to its old Hindutva line. Dainik Bhaskar had an article by social scientist Yogendra Yadav on how there was a change in the country's governance structure which was already evident and which would flower in the coming year.