We got lucky with Kobad Gandhy and that’s how we had with the best story in town. Or was it more?
The excitement began early in the day.

Our Jamshedpur correspondent who has been in Delhi for a refresher course heard from a source: someone big has been picked up in Delhi. Read more

It’s heartbreaking to follow stories done by others – newspapers or television news channel. That’s the way we grew up, in a two-newspaper town.

It was a matter of shame to be beaten by the rival paper on a story. And we were conditioned to deal with that shame by ignoring the news-break. Read more

We have been overwhelmed by the response to the new design. Most of it has been extremely good, some have been critical but bridging the two worlds are those urging us to concentrate on content.

“It’s looking very good,” went a response, “but it’s all about content.” “An equal emphasis on content as on presentation is what readers really want,” said a post on this blog. Read more

So what did you think of our new design? Cool, isn’t it? Now that it’s all over and the new Hindustan Times is out there, I can talk about a feedback session when we tested it first on some readers – all young and upwardly mobile Delhiites. Read more

I don’t think most people don’t read the anchor story, you know the story right at the bottom of the page, placed between the ad on the right and the briefs column on the left.

Readership surveys have apparently shown that readers, one, don’t notice it, and, two; they don’t go so far down the page, they simply move on. I don’t buy this, not at all. Read more

I was talking to some raw journalism recruits the other day. And it was difficult to escape their optimism about things, everything. They were young, bright and quite untouched by cynicism that sets in very quickly in this profession.

They were as raw as they get, waiting for their first byline. Read more

You stood in a line for almost an hour to vote. You have done your bit for the country. Must you now suffer the endless speculations about who is in the cabinet and who is not?  Who cares? Do you care? Or your mum?

One view in Hindustan Times is now you don’t. It’s all so boring now, specially as most of it is speculative anyway. Read more

The first election I covered was in 1994. Delhi was made of seven Lok Sabha seats as now, but differently sized. East Delhi and Outer Delhi were the massive comprising 20 and 21 assembly constituencies respectively. In fact, if my memory is still with me, which it is I think, Outer Delhi was the most populous Lok Sabha constituency in the country – a dubious honour, but an honour no doubt. Read more

Each blog post averages around 1,000 comments and there are scores of other blogs living off it. What is it about fakeiplplayer.blogspot that makes it so popular?

It’s cheeky, irreverent and deliciously scurrilous. It goes where no journalist – print or television – can, or perhaps will, ever go. And that is the secret of its astounding success (meteoric, if you prefer cliches). Have you seen it? Check it out: fakeiplplayer.blogspot.com. Read more

Everyone was a little tired of Pakistan. Our foreign editor left for home every day praying for a quiet night. But he was back on his BlackBerry within 30 minutes or thereabouts.

One more suicide bombing, one more statement from their home office or one more twist in the Swat story. It just didn’t stop. Tuesday night our Mumbai crime reporters came back with some more. Read more