TOI looks for skull caps

IN Media Watch Briefs | 23/06/2015

``Muslims stretch, but not much’’ went the 5 column heading on top of  page 12 in TOI, June 22.  ``Bengal, Jabalpur & Ujjain see fewer skull caps than Kerala, Bhopal & Nagpur’’ was the strap line. The  story began, ``Even as the nation set new records on the first International Yoga Day…there were mixed reports of participation by Muslims…’’ – immediately juxtaposing ``the nation’’ with ``Muslims’’. The rest of the story however was about Muslims doing yoga from ,Kerala to Aligarh to Hyderabad. But the reporter mentions plans changing in West Bengal “ when the issue of minority vote bank came to the fore.’’  So now reports directly   refer to  Muslims as ``skull caps’’ and ``vote banks’’.  During Modi’s  election rallies, the BJP made sure there were enough skull caps on display.  Looks like the TOI was looking for them too on Yoga Day, the way Ram Madhav was looking for one particular bearded gent. An RSS functionary couldn’t have written a better report.