Here's a look at the front page of yesterday's Hindustan Times, Delhi edition. The lead (Delhi sees nuclear club entry by year-end) is clean. The header is better too. The headers for this developing story which appeared as "Nuke Bill passage on course" on June 28 and "Nuke deal faces first vote today" on June 27 would have been appropriate had HT been an American daily. Climbing down to the next story (More troops to plug border infiltration). It is quite clean too. But I have a problem with the intro:
With the growing infiltration of militants in Jammu and Kashmir, the Centre has decided to re-deploy the Army in Gurez and Poonch sectors along the Indo-Pak border.
I would have been happy had it been better-phrased. Moving going down to the next story (Indian managers forged Mittal's steel empire). Relatively clean. A minor problem with the intro:
THE BATTLE may be won, but the war is far from over for Lakshmi Mittal. He has cleared the first hurdle in his bid for Arcelor, but there’s another test coming up on Friday — Arcelor shareholders will vote on whether to accept Mittal’s bid or opt for Russian steelmaker Severstal.
"The battle may be won" would mean the next battle may be won, or lost. But that is not what the reporter meant since the shareholders meeting has been referred to as another test that is "coming up". The battle being referred to here would be the one that has already been won by Lakshmi Mittal. The sentence should have begun: the such-and-such battle "may have been won". A bloomer in the third para:
Long before the world discovered the Indian manager, Mittal recognised them.
Get the number right. If "the manager" is singular, the pronoun that refers to the noun must be in the singular as well. In the gender-inclusive-language days Mittal would have recognised "him". Littering a copy with "him/her" is just that — littering the copy. So, it should have been "discovered Indian managers". Finally, the anchor (IAS officer's son tries to fake his way into DU) starts off with a typical HT getisim:
THE DU colleges are getting tech-savvy and that is bad news if you try to gain admission with a fake certificate. Abhishek Gaur realised this, a tad late, on Wednesday.
You become tech-savvy. A groaner here:
Gaur, who is reportedly the son of an IAS officer posted in Bareilly, UP, had applied for physics honours but he had got only about 70 per cent marks in Class XII.
Reportedly? LOL. Was he reported to be the son of a bureaucrat? Or, was he the son of one? Did someone report Abhishek Gaur to be the son of some IAS officer? The header makes it clear that he indeed is the son of a bureaucrat. HT still does not know when to use a hyphen, and when to go in for an em dash. Incorrectly inserted:
Gaur had apparently scanned his CBSE certificate and then fudged the marks on a computer. But Hindu - like most DU colleges - have started scanning certificates this year.
Correctly done:
So when there are doubts about the authenticity of a certificate — sometimes its thickness can give it away — the marks are immediately crosschecked.
