‘Because we are all cartoons drawn by God’

In the land of the Indian Institute of Science, the Indian Institute of Management, and the Indian Institute of Information Technology, the nascent Indian Institute of Cartoonists throws open a gallery of cartoons, “to promote the art of cartooning in India.” View the video here: India’s first cartoon gallery

When an editor draws a cartoon, it’s news

Indian print editors have done book reviews (Sham Lal, Times of India), film reviews (Vinod Mehta, Debonair), food reviews (Vir Sanghvi, Hindustan Times), music reviews (Chandan Mitra, TOI, Pioneer, The Sunday Observer; Sanjoy Narayan, Hindustan Times), elephant polo reviews (Suman Dubey, India Today) etc, but few have done cartoons. When The Telegraph, Calcutta, was launched […]

How seven cartoonists drew one TOI cartoon

As part of its dodransbicentennial celebrations, The Times of India has published “a cavalcade of cartoons over 175 years”. Titled “Jest in Time“, it is put together by Ajit Ninan, Neelabh Banerjee and Jug Suraiya. At its launch in New Delhi on Monday, seven well-known cartoonists—Sudhir Tailang from Deccan Chronicle, Manjul from Daily News and […]

How The Times of India went after N. Srinivasan

ARVIND SWAMINATHAN writes from Madras: Depending on what you expect of your newspaper, either The Times of India played just the right role in the N. Srinivasan matter: proactively taking up an issue that concerns a “nation of a billion-plus”, right up to the very end, even if it did not secure the end it […]

That was the year that was in the ‘free’ Republic

GEETA SESHU writes from Bombay: The year 2012 ended with a Kannada TV reporter, Naveen Soorinje, in jail for more than 50 days after the Karnataka High Court denied him bail. Mangalore-based Soorinje, was incarcerated on November 7, 2012 after police charged him under the UAPA and under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) for reporting […]

‘Darkest hour for media since the Emergency?’

Is it a good thing that the Supreme Court of India has not announced guidelines for media coverage of court cases? Or has it opened the floodgates by introducing a “neturalising device” that underlines the right of the accused to seek postponement of coverage on a case-by-case basis? And, by introducing a “constitutional principle” has […]

And so, India’s three best cartoonists are…

It isn’t often that Indian cartoonists talk about their craft—or their colleagues and compatriots. There is, for instance, a famous incident of the doyen of Indian cartooning, R.K. Laxman, being asked in the course of an interview with The Illustrated Weekly of India, about a younger cartoonist then working for the Indian Express. “Ravi Shankar? […]

MUST READ: ‘Shankar’s Weekly’ final editorial

Media freedom in India id est Bharat has never been a more scarce commodity than in the year of the lord 2012. The fourth estate is under concerted attack from all three pillars of our democracy—the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. Organisations mandated to protect media freedom (like the press council of India) are […]

Absolute Annarchy, and what’s more it is online

An online exhibition of cartoons by E.P. Unny, the chief political cartoonist of The Indian Express has gone live. Curated by Sundara Ramanathaiyer of the Centre for Comic Arts (CCA), the cartoons examine the Anna Hazare campaign through the eyes of India’s foremost political linesman. Visit the exhibition: E.P. Unny

Did R.K. Laxman subtly stifle Mario’s growth?

The passing away of  the legendary Illustrated Weekly of India, Economic Times and Femina cartoonist and illustrator Mario Miranda in Goa on Sunday, has prompted plenty of warm reminiscences from friends, colleagues and co-linesmen, along with a vicious doosra. Bachi Karkaria recalls her colleague from the third floor of The Times of India building in […]