No reality check

Better to be safe than sorry. This is certainly not something that the Indian media care to heed as they scramble to catch and ‘break' news. Take the Supreme Court's order last Tuesday that struck down the levy of airport development fee at the Mumbai airport. The channels started flashing the ‘breaking news' sometime before noon.

Even before anyone could lay their hands on the court order, there were heavy-duty ‘analyses' on the channels of how GMR Infrastructure, which operates the Delhi airport, and GVK Power, the Mumbai airport operator, would face a strain on cash flows after this move. Some brokerage reports even went so far as to quantify the impact of this development at the scrip level. One report put the potential ‘valuation drop' for GMR Infra and GVK Power at Rs 1 and Rs 1.6 respectively, based on the impending ‘strain' on their respective cash flows. Predictably, the two stocks were pummelled by 3-4 per cent that day. While the various analyses by themselves may not have been off the mark, it transpired soon that their very basis was wrong. The apex court had directed only the Mumbai operator to stop levying the fee, but said nothing about GMR. It only goes to show that in analysis, it doesn't quite pay to be quick on the draw.

Crazy days

It's not just the seven days of the week that some of us need to know, it seems. Creeping up always is an international ‘this' day or a world ‘that' day, as public relations pundits keep springing on us. Their FAQs go: ‘Are you writing on liver? No? Not even kidney?' ‘How about autism then?' Earth Day did not sell. A recent enterprising pitch at a health reporter was a last-ditch ‘Then you could do something for Plumbing Day!' Thanks to the likes of the United Nations and World Health Organisation, most diseases, body organs, issues and nature's elements already have their day in the calendar, as also mom and dad; literacy, environment, mountains and rivers. Too bad if you felt ‘zero tolerance to female genital mutilation', mother language, slave trade, or craved do-nuts. Potato Day, Panic Day, Sleep-in Day are taken, as are days for the deliberately unemployed, house sparrows, ballpoint pens and towels. Do hurry up if you have a rare fetish, there are only the last few days left.

Full bounty

We now know enough about voter freebies that peak at election times. And the umpteen free services that governments conjure up for the poor. As to who and how many really benefit from them is anyone's guess. And so it was mightily consoling to be reminded all over again that here is a non-government entity that not only provides world-class services to the needy, it doesn't charge them a paisa for them.

Amidst the tragic coverage of the passing of Sri Satya Sai Baba, one of the trustees at the Puttaparthi Trust, Mr V. Srinivasan, observed at a news conference that "We don't have a billing department for any of the services offered by the Trust.” Puttaparthi's schools and colleges, as well as the medical services through the two super-specialty hospitals there and at Whitefield are really free in the fullest sense of the term; there are no bills or receipts though lakhs of people make use of them. That also means freedom from money worries for many.

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