IRS (Indian Readership Survey) is a report which gives insight to the companies to plan their advertisement strategy.The report provides a tool to the newspaper and magazine publishers to understand where do they stand in the scheme of the Readers mindshare.But as with any other stat(and you know what else..I mean the B word),while what it reveals is interesting but what it leaves you to interpret is mind-boggling!.Going through some reports on IRS in exchange4media.com ,I came across the leadership position of the Bengali publications and what I found is really mind-boggling and also blood raging...
Ask any Bangal bhadralok about the non-daily bangali publication and they will speak about Desh,Sananda and Anandalok..also Nabakallol,Prasad and saptahik Bartaman..those with young children will speak about Anandamela and Shuktara.So it was quite natural that one will have an impression that one of these will be the most read publication in the Bengali readerspace but the names that appear at the top of the chart are the two publications which are aimed at unemployed youth-Karmakshetra and Karmasangsthan.Together they have an AIR(Average Issue Readership) of 1.5Mn plus.This is more than all the three major publications of ABP Group (Sananda,Desh and Anandalok)put together..talking about Bengal being an ABP nation!!!!
The first impression which comes to mind is that Bengal is caught in the time warp.It is still moored in the pre-reforms India.The degeneration which started in the late sixties continued unabated during the last three decades.Even when the monumental change that took place in the socio-economic plane of the Country in the 1990s has manifested in the tectonic shifts in the entire country,West Bengal has continued to be an island.The isolation,unfortunately,has not been a splendid one.Way back in 1980s,I remember Employment News used to be of the same stature as the above publication duo mentioned above is still having..but not any more...What it proves is that while the rest of India has tried to reap the benefits of liberalisation-in whatever skewed form -West Bengal under the leftists has been left out.
But the only silver lining seems to be the winds of change(Poribortoner Hawa)that seems to be blowing in the run-up to the ensuing election.Forget the alternative.Rather dont look at the alternative as Trinamool..look at it as the "battle for Future"...As Swapan Dasgupta wrote in his column(http://www.swapan55.com/) it is the "Left vs Future in Bengal 2011".The statistics is really depressing.RBI data tell us that West Bengal's share in Total Bank Deposits ,which was around 12% in 1978 is now a mere 6%...Kolkata's decline needs no reiteration.Physically,Economically and in each respect it looks like a tired city..For anybody who is not from the Region,a posting there is construed as punishment posting.You can go through some more such data chronicling the decline of Bengal in Manas Chakravarty's column in http://www.livemint.com/
A major change is surely required in Bengal...it requires a peep into the rest of India and for that it has to set itself free from the Leftist clutch.It may take some time to find the party or leader which can give it the correct leadership.There may be chaos in between..let it be.Chaos may be the purgatory...Time for a Bengal Renaissance again...
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