Manish, the original article about ToI selling their editorial space is here.

They'd earlier carry a small 'm' sign (for Medianet) with each such article, but they stopped doing that after the piece I linked to revealed this practice.

They have no concept of copyright, either, and treat everything on the internet as the equivelent of open-source content. Most irritating.

Arrgh I f&cking hate them so much. And you must be more pissed Manish, seeing as they've 'borrowed' from Sepia more than once. What a cum rag. Even my two-bit paper refuses to do this paid-for-article nonsense. They seem to think no one else has discovered t'Internet and they can lift what they like with ease and immunity.

Although:

cutie Soha Ali Khan

Cutie? Clearly your journalistic integrity needs questioning as well.

Ms. Khan is gifted with a proud schnozz, but so was Saleem Sinai. As for your complaint, I'd love to dig into this subject, so to speak.

Is it just me, or has TOI's website started looking more dignified of late? They don't run very many "Paris Hilton! Paris Hilton!" shots on the front page anymore. That's an improvement at least.

This Sunday's magazine section (the glossy supplement that accompanies the paper) has this for its cover story: Confessions of a Porn Star, an "exclusive interview with Sahara Knite, Indian girl and current shining star of British adult industry."

400 plus debt-laden farmers are driven to suicide in a month and this is what TOI deems as important reportage. I wouldn't even use it as ToIlet paper..

Masale Wallah, that takes the cake. So much for my theory that the TOI might have been trying to clean itself up.

"exclusive interview with Sahara Knite, Indian girl and current shining star of British adult industry."

Sahara is a Pakistani girl from Bolton. There was a documentary about her on Channel 4 which went on about her being Britain's first Muslim porn star - but I think they thought better of touting her like that so much. YToo controversial. Anyway, she really isnt that nice - but there is a market for white boys who want to watch a Muslim/Asian girl like that, good luck to her.

How does ToI survive? Ech it's sickening.

Shining star of the British adult industry? Pah, she's a nobody. As Tibor said she's not Indian and there've been docs about her and articles galore, all centering on her being a Muslim pornstar...yet she's still not particularly successful.

So I'm told.

ToI website is thre biggest pile of junk I have ever seen. It is a tabloid. Lets face it, it is aimed at US (or phoren) based NRI kids and esp single techie males.

They would not continue to do this if people stopped viewing the websites.

I use the Indian Express and The Hindu for newspapers.

BUT WHAT IS MOST EMBRASSING is the complete lack of self respect as the author of this article points out. Some student newspaper quotes ToI and they write an artice on it. Thats SICK. Totally bad.

So I'm told.

So you say, BB, so you say. :)

I wonder if the Harvard Independent will run a story saying, "Harvard Independent quoted in Times of India for quoting a Times of India story."

And Times of India could respond with, "Times of India quoted in Harvard Independent for quoting Harvard Independent story quoting Times of India."

And so on. It could be a merry game, and it could keep them both away from grown-man business like Hindu plagiarists and Muslim pornstars.

I just took a look at ToI after a break of about one year and actually although still the worst of the Indian newspapers for ads... it is a cleaner website that it was.... thats not saying much though.

I never click on a link if I think it will take me to the Times of India. Visiting that website is the online equivalent to having unprotected sex with a street whore. I still have mystery (spyware) programs loaded on my old PC I could never manage to remove. They definitely came from the TOI website.

>>business like Hindu plagiarists ...

In case you are refering to Kavya Viswanathan, she's half-Christian (her mother's name is Mary).

M. Nam

M. Nam -- just because her mother's name is Mary doesn't necessarily mean she's Christian. My doctor's name is Peter Takhar -- he's Hindu, believe it or not. His real name is Paramjit. Not all Hindus go by their Sanskritic names in America (the majority may, but not all).

Of the papers in India, my personal fav is The Hindu.

MoorNam,

Even in India, a lot of Hindus have Western (Christian) first names, even the ones who are not of mixed race, mixed religious parentage. Some exmples are: I know Neil Pande (named after Neil Armstrong's moon landing), a lot of Marxists would have names like Lenin Datta. I can go on and on.

I personally think raising this point is totally an non-issue.

MoorNam must not let the good name of Hinduism be sullied by mongrel plagiarists! Half Christian? UNCLEEEEAN!

In case you are refering to Kavya Viswanathan, she's half-Christian (her mother's name is Mary).

That explains everything. The Abrahamic Monotheists cannot understand the innate tolerance and hard-wired anti plaigarism that is inherent in the Hindu system of 64,000 years old civilisation of tolerance whose glory has been raped by the Abrahamics and caused Hindus to plaigarise and ruin the purity of the tolerance civilisation of tolerance inherent in the tolerance and anti-plaigaristic system of Vedic culture which is 79,000 years old and absolutely the most tolerant ever. We have been raped by Abrahamic plaigarists and they have spoiled everything. Boo-hoo-hoo.

No one is forcing anyone to read TOI. Stop whining about it and move on guys.

hahaha. funny, Spoor, funny.

BongBreaker/Spoor,

Are you folks always like this or do I bring it out in you?

M. Nam

Are you folks always like this or do I bring it out in you?

It is the monotheist blood in the crafty Bong Breaker's blood that is making him make anti-national statements about the half Satanist so called Hindu plaigarist. I have evidence that a copy of Opal Mehta Gets Wild was found written on scrolls discovered in the Ganges river basin written 85,000 years ago when the Vedic Hindu civilisation was at its most pure and tolerant. This is a Christian conspiracy, possibly in league with the Muslims, to defame Hinduism and make it look as if Hindus have always plaigarised even before we were raped by the Abrahamics. Just the same as the so called caste system and so called other things. And we are the most tolerant.

Manish,

pau bhaji on Juhu beach is way more satisfying than reading the ToI.

Suraj: I would say the point is not if you are forced to read the ToI, but the pre-eminent position they hold in Indian media. One hopes they take their responsibility seriously. Though newspapers like the Guardian and the NYT have displayed serious journalistic lapses of various kinds, the regularity and pettiness of ToI's transgressions are rather depressing, at least to me as an Indian.

sam.

No I'm always like this MoorNam.

Spoor that second one cracked me up!

Sam...the point regarding TOI has been made umpteen times. May be Manish gets somekind of orgasmic pleasure in beating up TOI everytime, he can't get hold of a "self flagellating" topic.

Abhi! Robbed again! :(

a friend of mine swears i bear an amazing resemblance to ms. khan. hhmmmmmm...........

the point regarding TOI has been made umpteen times.

I consider this an ongoing saga :)

OMG can you please start a "TOI" section? I'm totally serious.

Ever since Chiennes Sans Frontieres went down, I've been sad that I haven't been kept up to date on all their foibles and I would LOVE to see more of this stuff. I didn't even read the post--I'm just excited that it's here :)

Okay, now I read it. it's good :)

and in seriousness, is there a media crit section (like "News"--i don't know what you call those things). I think you would be quite good at it.

the point regarding TOI has been made umpteen times

Jab tak suraj chand rahega, SM par TOI badnam rahega.. TOI Hai Hai !!

I wrote as much a month ago - the paper literally stinks

totally agree with TOI being nonsense. In the past 2 months, they have been repeating articles from the previous days paper! Can you believe that? I thought I was going bonkers reading the same thing again and again.

TOI-letries did it again. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2056809.cms. Read the last para.