DR ANAND VIRGINCAR WROTE: I am almost certainly being silly from here on and inviting a barrage of justified ridicule. I am not aware of the finances required and the figures are purely for illustration . Is there any possiblity of say Rs 10 /- per household being levied per month( with discount or waiver on a means tested basis ) which would yield ( multipying by approximately 2.5 lakh households who can afford this ) a kitty of Rs 25 lakhs per month. Initial capital outlay could well be co-erced out of the government coffers or from genuine charitable sources ( or from the NRG pocket ). Would this not be sufficient to run a daily or weekly with high calibre well paid staff and unbiased content ? I did vocalise these thoughts to our mutual political friend and he felt it was feasible in terms of enforcement ( but then , his dictatorial style of decision making is something that even a supporter like me will point to without hesitation ). Your views from the journalist's side would be much more interesting.
My reply: An idea of building a "people's daily" was actually tried out in Goa. It was called NOVEM GOEM. For an insider's view of what happened to it, check: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/11523/11523.txt (search for "Novem Goem" ... takes a little while for the entire text to get downloaded). I will not hazard a guess who our "mutual political friend" is. I have a healthy distrust for politicians who use the electoral system to their advantage. Anyway, one could mention the experience of the barely-concealed BJP-floated daily Marathi newspaper 'Gova Doot'. It was set up in the past couple of years. While it did reward some pro-BJP reporters with fancy posts, I hardly see such a one-sided propaganda organ as a solution to the issues attempted to be raised earlier. That's just my view. Would be glad to be proven incorrect. FN -- Frederick Noronha http://fn.goa-india.org Ph +91-832-2409490