Return
to Story Page
To print: Select File and then Print from your
browser's menu
Sudeshna Chatterjee
MUMBAI, July 26: Jostling for shelf space at paper stands is a newspaper whose discerning readers may hardly be four feet tall. Navneet Newshouse, a weekly newspaper for children of eight years and above, hopes to reach out to those children who love reading papers, but fail to be gripped by everyday newspaper language.
The newspaper, published by the Navneet group of companies, hit the stands in a relaunched avataar earlier this year. Its editor, M P Bansal, observed, ``A child tries to read a newspaper just like his parents. However, because of the manner in which newspapers are written, there is nothing much to hold the a child's attention, except for the children's page or comic section. It is here that we step in.''
In a mainstream paper, a child would have got just a fleeting glimpse of the country's Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. The same news, though, is packaged differently in Navneet Newshouse to involve the child, focusing on the PM as a storywriter.
Bansal sunk inhis own money and effort to set up the paper, then Newshouse, two years ago. The Rs 111 crore Navneet group later took over the paper and relaunched it. In trying to give the paper a more children-centric focus, the director of Navneet Group, Anil Gala, insisted that innovative ideas and concepts be used in the paper. Thus there are items on boosting vocabulary, accompanied by illustrations mapping the origin of phrases, for instance, `foot the bill'. There is also column on difficult words and meanings.
The weekly, which is pegged at Rs 6 a week, doesn't just try to liven up a child's world, but also involve him or her about issues. The June 27-July 3 issue tackled the deplorable condition in the Byculla Zoo which, says the paper, led to a series of deaths of animals. And the July 25-31 issue carried stories on pollution, cancer and satellite system to prevent elephant poaching.
Even parents can take a leaf out of the paper, suggested Bansal, from features quoting studies on why smart children should MUMBAI, July 26: Jostling for shelf space at paper stands is a newspaper whose discerning readers may hardly be four feet tall. Navneet Newshouse, a weekly newspaper for children of eight years and above, hopes to reach out to those children who love reading papers, but fail to be gripped by everyday newspaper language.
The newspaper, published by the Navneet group of companies, hit the stands in a relaunched avataar earlier this year. Its editor, M P Bansal, observed, ``A child tries to read a newspaper just like his parents. However, because of the manner in which newspapers are written, there is nothing much to hold the a child's attention, except for the children's page or comic section. It is here that we step in.''
In a mainstream paper, a child would have got just a fleeting glimpse of the country's Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. The same news, though, is packaged differently in Navneet Newshouse to involve the child, focusing on the PM as a storywriter.
Bansal sunk inhis own money and effort to set up the paper, then Newshouse, two years ago. The Rs 111 crore Navneet group later took over the paper and relaunched it. In trying to give the paper a more children-centric focus, the director of Navneet Group, Anil Gala, insisted that innovative ideas and concepts be used in the paper. Thus there are items on boosting vocabulary, accompanied by illustrations mapping the origin of phrases, for instance, `foot the bill'. There is also column on difficult words and meanings.
The weekly, which is pegged at Rs 6 a week, doesn't just try to liven up a child's world, but also involve him or her about issues. The June 27-July 3 issue tackled the deplorable condition in the Byculla Zoo which, says the paper, led to a series of deaths of animals. And the July 25-31 issue carried stories on pollution, cancer and satellite system to prevent elephant poaching.
Even parents can take a leaf out of the paper, suggested Bansal, from features quoting studies on why smart children shouldnot be praised.Or what to say, and not to say, to children who lie about their poor marks.Impressive though it is, the paper's production values need polishing, as is apparent in items like `wisecracks' and the crosswords.
And the paper suffers from the usual commercial contradictions. While a headline on the front page screams `TV is more dangerous than dangerous games', page 11 sports a full-page advertisement for Cartoon Network, a popular American TV channel which children are hooked on to.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
------------------------------------------------------------
This story was printed from Net Express located at http://www.expressindia.com. Net Express provides a portal to India, with news from The Indian Express and The Financial Express along with sites on travel and tourism, the entertainment industry, the power sector, the environment and much more.
------------------------------------------------------------