At a time when the Telugu daily Namasthe Telangana promoted by none other than Telangana Rashtra Samithi president and Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao is struggling to pay salaries to its contributors across the State, as the advertisement revenues are not matching up to its expenditure, a newly-launched Telangana Telugu daily is virtually making big money, thanks to support from KCR.
The new daily – Mana Telangana – promoted by Communist Party of India, was formally launched by KCR on Sunday. And the Chief Minister is learnt to have ordered the officials of the Information & Public Relations department to release government advertisements to the new daily regularly.
Sources said KCR had pledged advertisements worth Rs 10 crore to Mana Telangana for this year.
One wonders how a newly-launched paper can get government advertisements, because it takes a minimum of six months (that too on special consideration) for the government to empanel any daily for advertisements. But if one takes a close look at Mana Telangana, one can observe that the so-called “inaugural” issue on Sunday was actually issue no. 216 of Volume 3.
It does mean, the daily got the RNI registration three years ago and has since been under publication. But, the paper has never seen the light of the day.
Sources said the promoters are printing a few copies every day and sending them to the I&PR department for record sake. Now that the daily is formally launched, it can straightaway claim advertisements from the government. That is the strategy of our great Communists!
Now, one might again wonder why KCR is showing so much love for Mana Telangana, a Communist paper. Well, the answer is simple: the new daily is learnt to have investments from KCR’s close associate and Energy Minister G Jagadish Reddy.
And Jagadish Reddy is none other than a brother-in-law of Namasthe Telangana editor Katta Sekhar Reddy, who is in turn co-brother of K Srinivas Reddy, now director-editor of Mana Telangana. So, it is all a big cartel!
