Covert promised to be different from the existing news magazines and it is rather too early to comment on it, as just a couple of issues are out.It may not have revealed dark truths about Indian politics and the dirty deals as yet, still Covert can be counted upon. Surely it will give a good competition to the other magazines in the market.
With five weekly magazines already established in the market: India Today, Outlook, The Week, Tehelka and The Sunday Indian, it may not be too easy for Covert to make its presence felt, though it is a fortnightly, just like Frontline, but with a different flavour.
Priced at Rs 20, Covert has MJ's old hand Seema Mustafa and Joyeeta Basu as Deputy Editor. Akbar has successfully launched and run several journals inluding Asian Age, Telegraph and Sunday.
Frankly, it's not too impressive but its harsh to judge the magazine so early and write it off. Let's see what impact does Covert make in the days to come, especially with the elections drawing nearer.
The website of Covert: http://www.covert.co.in/
seema mustafa made a huge mistake in a piece on `a ruthless ideologue'. said manmohan singh was chandrashekhar's economic advisor and went to him when his government was about to fall and reminded him of his promise to make him (singh) the ugc chairman.
ReplyDeletewell, the fact is, deepak nayyar was chandrashekhar's economic adviser. manmohan singh was in the south-south commission at that time. and he was ugc chairman much, much earlier.
senior journalists making such bloomers! really!
In 1990, he was handpicked by then prime minister Chandra Shekhar as his economic advisor, thereby bringing him into the public eye for the first time.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.indianembassy.org/i_digest/2004/may/m_singh_2.htm
Predictably, the columnist Ms. Mustafa was right, on you're wrong. He was economic advisor to Chandrashekhar.
I think covert is an interesting experiment. You can't compare it to Outlook, Frontline, or India Today as they've been in the market for years and have garnered far too much publicity and experience for a magazine that is about a couple of months old to compete with.
Covert might go on to gather that type of a name, or remain a magazine with a select circulation. One doesn't know.
After all, it took the Asian Age about ten years to reach where it did, tragic end.