At a time when negative stories sell more in the mainstream media which is divided on political and caste lines, it is pleasing to see positive stories at least occasionally.
On Saturday, some of the initiatives of YSR Congress party government in Andhra Pradesh have found prominence in the front pages of all the three major Telugu dailies – Eenadu, Andhra Jyothy and Sakshi, if not on the same scale.
Sakshi, being the mouthpiece of YSRC, made Jagan’s latest scheme “YSR Navasakam” as the lead story, saying a new era has been heralded in the state under Jagan’s regime.
New rice and pension cards to all the eligible beneficiaries in villages and towns, fee reimbursement to students, zero-interest loans to all DWCRA women, Rs 10,000 each to barbers, tailors and washer men and YSR Kapu Nestam are some of the initiatives announced by Jagan.
Andhra Jyothy, too, gave Jagan’s announcement of “saturation schemes” on the top, though in a single column, while Eenadu focussed on Jagan’s Arogya Sri scheme which has been extended to all the people including those having cars.
The Andhra chief minister’s meeting with YSRC MPs was also given a lot of prominence in the major Telugu dailies.
Eenadu quoted Jagan as directing his party MPs to fight for special category status and funds for Polavaram and Sakshi carried the same story with a general headline on Jagan asking his party MPs to fight for the state’s interests in Parliament. Andhra Jyothy pushed the same to the inside pages.
Of course, Eenadu also carried the report on Telugu Desam Party president N Chandrababu Naidu asking his party MPs to raise the “Tughlaq” decisions of YSRC government in Parliament such as introduction of English medium in government schools and curbs on media in AP.
Ironically, the Centre has nothing do with these decisions and Naidu did not mention about fighting on state’s interests in Parliament.
Apart from these common stories, Andhra Jyothy and Sakshi have their own brand stories today. For the second successive day, Sakshi highlighted the report on IT raids on Andhra infra companies that exposed the involvement of an “important” leader during the TDP regime.
It also carried the report on the CID police confiscating the mobile phones of Blue Frog Technologies’ managing director allegedly involved in hacking of sand portal.
On the other hand, Andhra Jyothy carried a banner story on Jagan’s decision to sell the government’s lands by entering into an agreement with National Building Corporation of India.
Similarly, it also carried another report on IAS officers spending government money for their personal needs. And another report says boozers from Andhra Pradesh are going to Telangana borders to consume liquor.
Interestingly, Andhra Jyothy is the only paper that carried an anchor on Jana Sena Party chief Pawan Kalyan, who started poor-feeding programme at Mangalagiri.
It quoted Pawan as saying that he was being treated as an enemy by the ruling party only because he is fighting for the solution to people’s problems.
The political developments in Maharashtra, wherein the Congress-NCP extending support to Shiv Sena to form the government is the only national news that figured prominently in all the three major dailies.