April , 2007
Lady in Waiting
In this media age, Mayawati is the ultimate "outsider". Openly contemptuous of the "manuvadi" media, she will rarely come to a television studio. Even if she does speak, it is more in the nature of a bark than a soundbite. She may have built herself a palatial bungalow in Delhi's upscale Sardar Patel marg, but she is not English-speaking, is not glamorous, will not be invited to page three parties or celebrity weddings, and will rarely be profiled in magazines. By contrast, the media hangs onto every little word of Rahul Gandhi, every dimpled smile becomes a perfect photo-op and reams are written on his roadshow. Even Priyanka Gandhi's 'day out" in Amethi-Rae Bareli has made more news than Mayawati criss-crossing the heat and dust of Uttar Pradesh. Well, here is the reality check: Rahul baba is not even close to winning the UP elections, Maya memsaab could very well....
Death of a game
Here's a candid confession: as India were losing to Sri Lanka, for once I didn't really mind. After a lifetime of cheering for the men in blue, for the first time defeat didn't seem to really hurt. Actually, it almost seemed to come as a relief that India's quest for the world cup had come to a premature end. No more jingoistic advertising, no more sms polls predicting an India triumph, no employee flexitime to watch the late light matches, no sepia-tinted flashback to 1983, no musical tributes to the team, no yagnas being performed to pray for an Indian triumph, and yes, no non-stop television programming. India could get back to real work. Watching a visibly shaken Rahul Dravid and Greg Chappell after the game, one was saddened at the sight of two proud men and outstanding cricketers being mercilessly grilled by the media. Two....




More about Rajdeep Sardesai
Rajdeep Sardesai is the Editor-in-Chief, IBN18 Network, that includes CNN-IBN, IBN 7 and IBN Lokmat. He comes with 22 years of journalistic experience during which he has covered some of the biggest stories in India and the world. Prior to setting up the IBN network, he was the Managing Editor of both NDTV 24X7 and NDTV India and was responsible for overseeing the news policy for both the channels. He has also worked with The Times of India for six years and was the city editor of its Mumbai edition at the age of 26. During the last 22 years, he has covered major national and international stories, specialising in national politics. He has won numerous other awards for journalistic excellence, including the prestigious Padma Shri for journalism in 2008, the International Broadcasters Award for coverage of the 2002 Gujarat riots and the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award for 2007. He has won the Asian Television Award for best talk show for the Big Fight on two occasions and his current flagship show on CNN-IBN, India at 9, has been awarded the best news show at the Asian awards for the last two years. He has been News Anchor of the year at the Indian Television Academy for seven of the last eight years and won more than 50 awards in this period. He has also been the President of the Editors Guild of India, the only television journalist to hold the post and was chosen a Global leader for tomorrow by the world economic forum in 2000. An alumni of St Xavier's College, Mumbai, he has done his Masters and LLB from Oxford University and has also played first class cricket for the Oxford University team. He has contributed to several books and writes a fortnightly column that appears in seven newspapers.



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