Where does your newspaper stand?

Long years ago I had visited this site (politicalcompass.org) after it was mentioned in Times of India. Those were the days of dial up connection and limited hours of usage allowed per month. The site offers a test which places you on a scale of leftist to rightist and the Y axis gives you your position on the line from Authoritarian to Libertarian. I recommend that you take the test on yourself. It may not be 100% accurate as it is designed for developed countries but it certainly isn’t far from the truth.

I found out that long ago in 8th standard, when I first tried it I was far more to the right than I am now. I was also a lot more authoritarian.

There are several things we believe to be true as a common sense opinion or urban legend. It is always a pleasure to see something that backs it up with numbers. Now I think it is generally believed that The Hindu is left of centre and Times of India is to the right of it. Of the Indian Express I’ve heard it called left of center, right of center, both left and right etc.. What I intend to do is to examine beliefs of this kind and see which way the editorials of 3 newspapers argue on each issue. I shall make a note of their opinion on each issue and then use it to take the quiz on their behalf. This should give us a good idea of where they stand. I’m picking these newspapers because I’m anyway reading them. Depending on how it goes, I might just throw Star of Mysore and Vijaya Karnataka into the mix. I may have to do this over a long period so don’t expect any quick results.

You can track my tracking of the newspaper over here. I will be doing my best to update it everyday. I shall be relying upon my readers (yes both of you) to keep me motivated. Something I wont promise but will try my very best is to make summaries of all these editorials available. It is a big project. And requires a lot of hard work. Any help will be welcome and much appreciated. I can't offer much of a reward apart from an acknowledgment and my undying love and affection.

Historically whenever I have promised to post something on this blog I have not kept the promise. Hopefull I shall break the jinx this time.

However, if I am happy with how it goes. I will consider doing the same for top parliamentarians and judges.

Chief Ministers are we all

Firstly I am disappointed in myself that I had heard of Goodluck Jonathan before I had heard of Friday Lyngdoh the new co-chief minister of Meghalaya. I seek to differentiate these names from the Hartal Halappas and the Mukhyamantri Chandrus. You see, Friday and Goodluck are actually their names.

Now not only are there reports that there are multiple chief ministers of the land of the clouds but there also seems to be no consensus on the number of chief ministers with Times of India saying that there are two and Indian Express saying there are four. The Hindu says it is four and I shall believe the "four" version for now. Now apart from the four chief ministers there are also two deputy chief ministers. Hon'ble Union Minister of State for Water Resources and the lovely Union Minister of State, Ministry of Rural Development must be reconsidering their choice of entering national politics though both of them seem to be doing well for themselves even there.

The satirist in me says that this is a good step for development in the North East. It is job creation at the highest level.

Thankfully they have clarified that executive power will remain with one person. This means that the A163 and 164 of the constitution will not be molested for now.

P.S. It has made the headlines this time. But it has been an old practice to accommodate political leaders and supporters as heads of cooperatives, authorities, public corporations and quangos and give them rank of cabinet minister. A friend tells me that a certain lawyer representing Sri BSY in a sensitive case has been given status of cabinet minister for protocol purposes.

What does it cost?

This isn't really a post as much as it is a sad joke that should have been a tweet. But since I'm putting it up here, I'll resolve to make it a trailer for the next post which will be bigger and better.

My target today is again from the front page of the Times of India. The article claims that Rs 42 Lakhs are wasted every time the legislature doesn't function. The article feels sad about this. I would say that it's good. 42 Lakhs is very economical. Just think about the money that would have been wasted if they actually functioned.