It’s actually on page 17 of the Hindustan Times. The Mail Today, which leads on liquor being allowed for sale in shopping malls, puts it on page 16. The Hindu, which also finds space for liquor sales liberalization on its front page, puts it on page 20.
What is it? News of the Indonesia quake and the Samoan tsunami. Last night, when these papers were being put to bed, we knew that hundreds (now probably thousands) of people had died.
Why is such major news in Asia relegated to back pages of Indian newspapers (there are some exceptions, of course) ?
The Indonesia quake especially was close to India – there was a brief tsunami alert for the Indian Ocean — and how Indonesia copes will be of immense interest to people in India who wonder how authorities have learnt from the last 2004 Asian tsunami. And of course there is the simple humanitarian issue – the stories of suffering and hope that we all can identify with.
My pet theory is India is such a huge country, that rather like the United States, it has a tendency to look inwards.
