Any reasonable person who’s had the misfortune of watching the Fox News channel in the U.S. knows only too well its “Unfair and Unbalanced” tone.

So, it’s with deep regret we note that News Corp chief Rupert Murdoch has finally managed to get his grubby hands on one of the world’s finest newspapers - the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) - by his purchase of the paper’s parent company Dow Jones.

India and Indians have special reason to worry - and be extremely wary - because of Murdoch’s perceived softness when it comes to news coverage of China and the dictatorship running that Communist country.

And no one ever said China was a friend of India. 

Besides the ugly Fox TV network, New York Post, The Times of London, Star TV and DirecTV also form part of News Corp’s vast media empire that stretches from Australia to India to the U.S.

It’s a Dark Day for Newspaper lovers, few as they are in the U.S.

Of course, we had little doubt that Murdoch would win. After all, we live in a society where money trumps everything else.

Murdoch with his $60 per share bid, a 67% premium over Dow Jones stock price at the time of his offer three months back, had made it all but impossible for the offer not to go through.

Ultimately, it took just $5 billion to bring to an end a fine era.

The Wall Street Journal will be Murdoch’s heavy artillery as he launches a business channel to take on the stupid CNBC.

The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times remain Continue Reading…

India’s Ministry of Information & Broadcasting has banned two underwear ads on the grounds of vulgarity.

Officials from India’s Ministry of Information & Broadcasting said advertisements of ‘Lux Cozy Underwear’ and ‘Amul Macho Underwear’, which are being telecast on several television channels, have been considered indecent, vulgar and suggestive. 

The ban prohibits transmission or retransmission of the advertisements of ‘Lux Cozy Underwear’ and ‘Amul Macho Underwear’ on all broadcasting platforms with immediate effect.

You can watch the Amul Macho ad here and the Lux Cozy ad here and decide for yourself if they are vulgar.

India’s hopelessly incompetent Tourism Ministry has launched an e-commerce portal on the Incredible India web site.

The aim is to let visitors to the Incredible India web site make online reservations at a variety of hotels and Bed & Breakfast establishments.

India’s Tourism Minister Ambika Soni, a fossil from the Sanjay Gandhi days, wants to add medical tourism to the e-commerce portal.

UK IT firm Eviivo is providing the technology for the e-commerce portal.

Eviivo’s technology is supposed to integrate third party consolidators and multiple partners to enable the Tourism Ministry to provide an open platform for all participants in the tourism industry.

Desiya.com, Travelguru.com, Yatra.com, Ezeego1.com, Makemytrip.com, Etoursonline.com, Indiatimes.com and Cleartrip.com are joining the Tourism Ministry’s initiative as partners though their exact role is not clear.

Hopelessly inefficient, Indian tourism officials have done a pitiful job in attracting tourists to the country.

According to statistics from the World Tourism Organization, India got a piffling 3.91 million international tourists in 2005 compared to 8.47 million international tourists for Croatia, a country most Indians have probably never heard of. In the same year,  India’s communist neighbor China got a whopping 46.81 million tourists.

Wall Street Journal (subscription required) columnist Bret Stephens has lashed out at India’s supposedly growing defense ties with Iran in a hard-hitting column on Tuesday.

Citing articles in DefenseNews and the Washington Quarterly as well as actions by the U.S. State and Justice Departments, Stephens charges India with providing miliary technology to Iran, a pariah state for the U.S. establishment.

The U.S. is deeply concerned about Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Iran is also one of the three countries in U.S. President George Bush’s Axis of Evil (the other two are North Korea and Iraq).

In his column Tuesday, Stephens wrote:

[I]f Congress is going to punch a hole in the NPT to accommodate India — with all the moral hazard that entails for the nonproliferation regime — it should get something in return. Getting India to drop, and drop completely, its presumptively ceremonial military ties to Iran isn’t asking a lot.

As for the Indians, they don’t seem unduly worried about the criticism over the Indo-Iran military relationship describing it as “ceremonial”.

India’s Deputy Chief of Mission in Washington DC Raminder Singh Jassal is quoted in the WSJ piece as saying:

We are aware of our responsibilities and we know the danger of an Iran with nuclear weapons.

India’s burgeoning ties with Iran is prompted by its growing energy needs. The two countries are working on a 1,600 mile-long, multi-billion dollar gas pipeline deal to move gas from Iran to India via Pakistan. The U.S. is opposed to the gas pipeline project.

Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt was sentenced to six years of Rigorous Imprisonment on Tuesday for possession of illegal weapons acquired from those involved in the Mumbai bombings that killed 257 people in 1993.

In November last year, Sanjay Dutt was convicted for possessing an AK 56 rifle and a 9mm pistol.

The 48-year-old actor, who was present in the court, when the verdict was read, was immediately arrested.

Sanjay Dutt’s lawyer plans to appeal the verdict.

Sanjay Dutt is the most high profile of the 100 people who have been found guilty in the Mumbai bombings trial.

Judge Pramod Kode, who pronounced the sentence in a crowded court room, also fined the actor Rs 25,000, an insignificant sum for a star who earns several millions of Rupees for each Bollywood movie. 

Sanjay Dutt had earlier been cleared of the more serious terrorism and conspiracy charges related to the Mumbai bombings that happened in retaliation for the razing of the Babri Masjid mosque in the North Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

Son of two late Bollywood actors Sunil Dutt and Nargis, Sanjay Dutt is a former drug addict and a controversial figure for over two decades now.